drat fink

ku ku kuchoo

results from the moveon.org primary. dean wins but not with the necessary 50% to guarantee an endorsement and not-so-filthy lucre. the likely rallying cry for the mcdeaniacs -- Blame Kucinich!

on to something

"At midnight tonight, voting will close in the first online Democratic presidential primary ever. The vote is being sponsored by the San Francisco-based liberal activist group MoveOn; an estimated 300,000 of the group's more than 1.4 million U.S. members are expected to cast online ballots. And by Friday, one clear winner will have emerged: MoveOn itself."

brain powired

"The Medtronic was originally developed as a tool for brain surgery: by stimulating or slowing down specific regions of the brain, it allowed doctors to monitor the effects of surgery in real time. But it also produced, they noted, strange and unexpected effects on patients' mental functions: one minute they would lose the ability to speak, another minute they would speak easily but would make odd linguistic errors and so on. A number of researchers started to look into the possibilities, but one in particular intrigued Snyder: that people undergoing transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, could suddenly exhibit savant intelligence -- those isolated pockets of geniuslike mental ability that most often appear in autistic people."

gods people

"To free ourselves from this self-defeating conundrum, American Jews must understand our unwitting complicity in this pact with, well, the devil. We must entertain the possibility that Israel, the nation, may not be the ultimate realization of Jewish ideals as much as a necessary compromise. Israelis get this; New Yorkers seem to have a little more trouble because we insist on seeing Jerusalem as somehow more sacred than Manhattan.

There are better arguments to be made for a Jewish homeland than the assertion that the "one and true God" gave it to us. (That’s not what abstract monotheism was invented for, anyway. She’s not just our God–she’s everyone’s.) After centuries of exile or worse by nation states with their own official religions, one Jewish strategy was to create our own nation, with its own official religion. Although long characterized by an independence from territory and local gods, Judaism might not be completely wrecked by the temporary suspension of these values for the greater priority."

desolation crow

"But one of the most important things I learned about New York was the importance of the summer song. The song on the airwaves and in the air that summer, the song that defined that summer for me and more than a few others, was "Mr. Tambourine Man"—the Byrds’ seductive electric version of the Dylan songwriting break-through which was a surprisingly big radio hit, the kind that was handed off to you from the window of a passing car, wafted out from the open doors of a steamy laundromat, the open window of a tenement basement, competed with the sound of the waves at Coney Island, blasted out a transistor radio hanging from the handle of a hand truck: "In the jingle-jangle morning" it came following you. (See my piece in the May 28, 2001, Observer for an explanation of how Dylan once defined for me, in an interview, the precise meaning of the "jingle-jangle morning." )"

move it

"Which brings me to the MoveOn primary. MoveOn is the most powerful and effective part of the progressive internet movement, with over 1.5 million active members (both in a grassroots and monetary sense), they are our flagship organization, so to speak. Now they're deciding which candidate to endorse and throw their very substantial money and numbers behind. This endorsement will likely make the difference for whomever it goes to, immediately catapulting whoever gets it up a tier and ahead of their opponents. The effects of that endorsement, the push it will give its recipient, has the potential to instantaneously make this internet group, and by association the online progressive movement, a powerful, make or break constituency. In effect, gaining MoveOn will give one candidate access to the heart and soul of the progressive movement - and from that point on, our work for that person will give us unheard of power to shape the future of the Democratic Party.

This is our moment, I cannot emphasize this enough. You must go register with MoveOn and make your voice heard. I don't care who you vote for, this is not a partisan thing - I just care that you vote and make our rhetoric and fervor a real, tangible, shining prize that will have to be won in ever coming election. Make a choice and give us a candidate we can support, that we can carry to victory. Make grassroots support important again, take back this democracy from the top down media manipulation we are all subjected to and frustrated by. Give us the power again."

television society

"News footage from the first BBS broadcast of June 2 1999, records the cheer that resounded around Changlimithang. Bhutan's spiritual and cultural leaders were all agreed that TV could only increase the country's Gross National Happiness and help the people to pave the way to a modern, democratic nation. Mynak Tulku, the reincarnation of a powerful lama, is the Dragon King's unofficial ambassador for new technology. Light pouring in through the carved wooden windows catches his large protruding ears and bathes the monk in a golden glow. Nearby, in the main library, some of the oldest surviving texts in Tibetan Buddhism, dharmic verses penned in liquid gold, are being digitised. "I am so excited about technology," beams the Tulku, the epitome of the king's notion of Gross National Happiness. "And let me tell you that TV's OK, as long as you appreciate that it is a transitory experience. I tell my students that it's like rushing in from the cold, going straight to the heater and ending up with frostbite. Ha, ha. TV can make you think that you are being educated, when in fact all you're doing is blinking your life away with a remote control. Ha, ha."

valordictorian

one student who wont be suing her classmates to get ahead.

talibanter

"KARACHI - Such is the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, compounded by the return to the country of a large number of former Afghan communist refugees, that United States and Pakistani intelligence officials have met with Taliban leaders in an effort to devise a political solution to prevent the country from being further ripped apart."

via atrios

memo rex

had this message waiting for me on my computer this morning.

"COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT WARNING:
It appears that you are offering copyrighted music to others from your computer. Distributing or downloading copyrighted music on the Internet without permission from the copyright owner is ILLEGAL. It hurts songwriters who create and musicians who perform the music you love, and all the other people who bring you music.

When you break the law, you risk legal penalties. There is a simple way to avoid that risk: DON'T STEAL MUSIC, either by offering it to others to copy or downloading it on a "file-sharing" system like this.

When you offer music on these systems, you are not anonymous and you can easily be identified. You also may have unlocked and exposed your computer and your private files to anyone on the Internet. Don't take these chances. Disable the share feature or uninstall your "file-sharing" software. For more information on how, go to http://www.musicunited.net/5_takeoff.html.

This warning comes from artists, songwriters, musicians, music publishers, record labels and hundreds of thousands of people who work at creating and distributing the music you enjoy. We are unable to receive direct replies to this message. For more information about this Copyright Warning, go to www.musicunited.net."

let me intertain you

bunch of interviews ive read in the last two days.

*sidney blumenthal at the wash post
*maer "radar" roshon at black table
*matt drudge at radar
*claire zulkey on her bio page
*michael "moneyball" lewis at bb primer
*bill james at slate

more

*liz phair gets in touch with her inner avril

*and one from that malkmus feller

cigarette girls

study shows that most studies prove nothing.

just duckie

"By any definition, not acting now to narrow the gap between revenues and outlays is a dereliction of fiduciary responsibility. Cutting taxes in the face of it is willful recklessness. But this policy failure is a political success for the Rove/Bush strategy of keeping the sun from setting on the GOP era. Rove is open about the alchemy required. He laid it out for his Boswell, the invaluable Nicholas Lemann, of The New Yorker. Tax cuts and budget deficits will starve the government of funds for discretionary spending on things like after-school programs, health care, and public transportation. Receiving fewer services, Americans will demand tax relief. The idea is to create a permanent constituency for tax cuts, especially among poorer Americans, those "lucky duckies," in the words of a Wall Street Journal editorial, who pay little or no federal income taxes now. The Journal, the Administration's oracle on taxes, says the key to cutting government is to shift more of the tax burden on to the people at the lower end of the economic spectrum—those who work at Wal-Mart, who clean office buildings, staff nursing homes and school cafeterias. Since most state tax codes follow the federal template, the Bush cuts will trigger state income tax cuts, which will force more reductions in state spending and/or increases in state sales and local property taxes to balance state budgets. Sales and property taxes fall with painful severity on the less affluent. Piece by piece, under successive tax revolts, the regulatory responsibilities assumed by the federal government beginning a hundred years ago will be abandoned, and the programs of the Great Society (Medicare, Medicaid, Federal Aid to Education, Head Start, etc.) and the New Deal (Social Security) will be hollowed out, dismantled, or privatized."

sad state

"After 15 years and $1 billion in charity, international financier and philanthropist George Soros bid an emotional farewell to Russia on Thursday, saying it was time to focus his efforts on a nation more in need of help -- America.

"I was led to come to Russia because of my concern for a prospering open society," Soros told students and journalists at the Higher School of Economics, which was created with his funding. "But now I have to concentrate on what goes on in America. The fight for an open society now has to be fought there," he said."

real squares

"But Blair and Miller have more in common than you might think. Both are in trouble for giving readers dubious information. While Miller's alleged improprieties are of a more subtle nature, and she comes into this rough patch with an estimable reputation built over the course of a long and distinguished career, her case reveals a great deal about the state of today's news media. What Miller did, and the fact that her brand of journalism is encouraged and rewarded by the powers that be, is precisely the kind of topic that the Times's leadership ought to air during its current semipublic glasnost phase. In Blair's case, the only serious damage has been to the paper's image. Miller, on the other hand, risks playing with the kind of fire that starts or justifies wars, gets people killed and plays into the hands of government officials with partisan axes to grind."

brain dread

"A Buzzflash Interview With James Moore, Co-Author (with Wayne Slater) of "Bush's Brain""

history lesions

"The historians' verdict was clear: The impeachment drive against President Clinton lacked constitutional and political legitimacy. The journalists' opinion was equally clear: The impeachment was legitimate, and the historians were really a fusty collection of liberal elitists who had no business sticking their noses into public affairs.

Now an extraordinary thing has happened. Journalists from across the political spectrum are finally acknowledging that impeachment was mostly a partisan crusade on trumped-up charges to bring down a popular president. "From the viewpoint of history," the conservative Andrew Sullivan wrote recently in the New York Observer, "it's going to seem deranged." They have conceded that numerous allegations noisily leveled against Clinton and repeated endlessly in the news media of which they are a part have turned out to be bogus."

pinch me

michael wolff on arthur sulzberger jr.

via gawker

only the leo-nely

delong on the conservative misreading of leo strauss.

human be ins

collection of new scientist articles about human nature.

via matt yglesias

right on times

just walked in and saw that raines and boyd resigned as top editors from the times. raines always wanted clinton to fall on the sword. guess he took his own advice instead.

tanked up

"The Democrats are ramping up efforts to launch a liberal think tank in September that they say will give their party the unified message it lacked in 2002 and counter the well-funded network of conservative policy shops.

John Podesta, who served as White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration, is spearheading the project and consulting with Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill.

The think tank, known for now as the American Majority Institute, will have an annual operating budget of at least $10 million, a sum that would immediately make it the largest Democratic think tank in town."

via tapped

funny cide up

"The plot would run like this: old high school buddies buy horse on cheap (although this is a relative term in racing circles), engage trainer who hasn't won a major title in more than 30 years, and a Chilean-born jockey who has struggled to overcome his own demons: a cocaine habit in the 1980s, horrific injuries and career-destroying weight gain, in the 90s.

Against all odds - 14-1 going into the Kentucky Derby - they win, only to see triumph tinged with heartache. One of the owners, Gus Williams, is cruelly mocked for affronting the Kentucky blue bloods by wearing a yellow plaid sports jacket with matching yellow trousers. The jockey, Jose Santos, is accused of using an electric buzzer in his whip hand after a strange blur is spotted in the finish-line photo. The Funny Cide team is devastated - it's the old guard of the racing world fighting to keep control. The jockey is quickly cleared of all irregularities, and goes on to vindication by romping home in the next leg of the Triple Crown by 9 3/4 lengths, a historic margin."

addiction subtraction

"Booth’s description is wrong or grossly misleading in every particular. To understand why is to recognize the fallacies underlying a reductionist, drug-centered view of addiction in which chemicals force themselves on people -- a view that skeptics such as the maverick psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the psychologist Stanton Peele have long questioned. The idea that a drug can compel the person who consumes it to continue consuming it is one of the most important beliefs underlying the war on drugs, because this power makes possible all the other evils to which drug use supposedly leads."

heroes of hiphoprisy

"Then last month, after years of fighting, Credico and the families he works with saw their fortunes suddenly change. Multimillionaire rap mogul Russell Simmons joined the battle, bringing with him some of his famous friends. Last week, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs spoke at an anti-Rockefeller press conference, announcing a rally on June 4 outside City Hall in Manhattan. DMX and Jay-Z recorded spots that are running on New York hip-hop stations, telling listeners about the injustice of the Rockfeller laws and urging them to attend the rally. Rap's original audience -- urban black kids -- come from the communities hardest hit by these laws, say the artists, and they should demand that politicians do something about them."

wilson racquets

"This new imperialism differs in some respects from the older U.S. imperialism of Roosevelt and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge—the new imperialists don't assume, for instance, the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race or seek the spread of Christian civilization—but it is sufficiently similar to raise the question of whether these new imperialists are reviving a strategy that failed the United States 80 years ago. That failure was understood most clearly by Woodrow Wilson, who offered not only the most compelling critique of U.S. imperialism but also the most thoughtful alternative—a liberal internationalism that served the United States well in the second half of the twentieth century and could guide Americans again today."

leaf blower

"Canada's move to decriminalize is part of a shift in international attitudes toward pot, away from the "reefer madness" legacy. Spain and Italy decriminalized marijuana in the 1990's. Portugal decriminalized it in 2001, Luxembourg and Belgium the next year. In the Netherlands — where pot has been available since 1976 — "pharmaceutical grade" cannabis is provided, free of charge, through the national health service. Britain plans to reduce penalties for possession this summer, a policy supported by the nation's leading medical journal, The Lancet. It concluded, "moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill effect on health."

Meanwhile, the United States has escalated its war on pot. The number of marijuana arrests now approaches three-quarters of a million annually, largely for simple possession. More people are in prison for marijuana crimes today than ever before. Dozens, if not hundreds, are serving life sentences for nonviolent pot offenses. Attorney General John Ashcroft has called for full enforcement of the pot laws and spearheaded a crackdown on medicinal marijuana providers in California, though their efforts are legal under state law."

maass or men

"His latest post mentioned an afternoon he spent at the Hamra Hotel pool, reading a borrowed copy of The New Yorker. I laughed out loud. He then mentioned an escapade in which he helped deliver 24 pizzas to American soldiers. I howled. Salam Pax, the most famous and most mysterious blogger in the world, was my interpreter. The New Yorker he had been reading—mine. Poolside at the Hamra—with me. The 24 pizzas—we had taken them to a unit of 82nd Airborne soldiers I was writing about."