drat fink

passion play

lovely

hit by pitch

baseball.insight.daily.

short sharp shack

"I'm Richard Baker and this is my homepage and the central node of my Web presence. I'm a physicist, an entrepreneur, an Extropian, a science fiction fan and a computer geek. Maybe one day I'll be a writer too. I'm also interested in history, philosophy, evolutionary biology, positive psychology and many other things. I have all the standard accoutrements of online life: a weblog, a PGP public key, a Geek Code, numerous wishlists, a PayPal account, a FOAF summary."

duck dodgers

"The Bush administration is bracing itself for the latest memoir by a former insider," The Independent reports. "Joe Wilson, a former ambassador, will this week reveal the name of the government official who 'outed' his wife -- revealing her identity as a CIA operative in apparent revenge for his role in proving the White House made false claims about Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons."

times change

kinsley named op-ed editor of la times.

tickling the ivories

"Nicholas Turse has been covering the military-industrial-entertainment-scientific complex for Tomdispatch now for many months. His last piece was on the nature-bending activities of the Pentagon's blue-sky scientific operation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA. Now, he adds another hyphen to the complex's complex equation, reminding us of the way in which higher education has become a wing of the Pentagon. The ivory tower is, he tells us, being rebuilt out of a high-tensile [classified] material and armed with [classified] [secret] [classified] and so is being readied to face the world explosively."

watching use

"As a result, some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable."

via animal

meet the mutts

"One move won’t do it—the current club has a pallid offense and too many declining veteran pitchers. The Mets must follow a comprehensive plan that incorporates the club’s financial wherewithal (annual revenue estimated at $158 million), the primacy of a strong farm system (cheap parts allow extraordinary flexibility), and the demands of the New York market. Raving yahoos on WFAN—“Trade Tyler Yates for Vladimir Guerrero!”—have no idea how complex reworking a baseball roster in the Moneyball age can get; from luxury taxes to arbitration schedules, carping press-boxers to union grievances, this isn’t some office rotisserie-league team where you just add up the stats. Plausible moves might not get your heart pounding right now, but they are the only way to eventually defibrillate this franchise."

via primer

lets goo crazy

"Of course, Google's current value stems from the founders' willingness to rethink methods of how to search Web pages, at a time when many Internet experts thought that problem had been solved. And the company now appears to be looking at extending its business in ambitious ways, like a new e-mail service for consumers. But the ambitions of the Google founders wander further afield. They have talked about building space transporters and implanting chips in people's heads that can provide them with information as they think."

state mints

all politics aside, if this is what the council on foreign relations thinks, this is what kerry thinks.

slam dunce

isnt it endlessly ironic that the man who 30 years ago asked, who will be the last man to die for a mistake, cant bring himself to make that same query now?

bandied about

bob woodward and prince bandar are on meet the tim this morning. also check out the richard clarke op-ed in the times.

rum tum tugger

"A: I doubt it. … We're going to have to clean some of this up in the transcript when you publish it. We'll give you a—I mean you just said Bandar and I didn't agree with that so we're going to have to—I don't want to say who it is but you are going to have to go through that and find a way to clean up my language too."

short shrift

"Page 281: On Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy: "I have to deal with the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day.""

bribes r us

"The secret-ferreting doesn’t stop there. Mr. Woodward invites the reader along when an Arabic-speaking C.I.A. spook nicknamed "Tim" slips across the Turkish border into Iraq with a truck full of loot to recruit spies. "They were carrying tens of millions of dollars in U.S. $100 bills stored in black Pelican boxes, heavy cardboard boxes with hinges that are often sold in art stores," Mr. Woodward recounts. "Tim had to sign for his share. In the end he had been advanced $32 million, and he would have to present vouchers to account for it all. Yellow, 3-by-3 Post-its signed by the paid agents would suffice, he hoped. When the others lost sight of Tim’s vehicle on the way in, they joked that he probably was heading for the Riviera. Tim had found that $1 million in $100 bills weighed 44 pounds and fit neatly into a day backpack.""

barn dour

""I don't think anybody from the State Department would ever have intended to cast aspersions on Pottery Barn's commitment to customer service.""

designated driver

"Faced with a chronically less popular product than the National League, and a major deficit in hitting and scoring, following the 1972 season the American League was ready to take bold action; one might even call it an act of desperation. The AL voted to conduct an "experiment" with the Designated Hitter rule in 1973. Jerome Holtzman in the Sporting News Baseball Guide aptly described it: "The most significant rule change in modern baseball history.""

cross wits

"Clausewitz, that ultimate realist, once said that "he who neglects the possible in quest of the impossible is a fool." And that just might end up being the epitaph for America's insane imperial adventure in the Middle East."

vested interest

"Yet the memo is gloomy in most other respects, portraying a country mired in dysfunction and corruption, overseen by a CPA that "handle(s) an issue like six-year-olds play soccer: Someone kicks the ball and one hundred people chase after it hoping to be noticed, without a care as to what happens on the field." But it is particularly pointed on the subject of cronyism and corruption within the Governing Council, the provisional Iraqi government subordinate to the CPA whose responsibilities include re-staffing Iraq's government departments. "In retrospect," the memo asserts, "both for political and organizational reasons, the decision to allow the Governing Council to pick 25 ministers did the greatest damage. Not only did we endorse nepotism, with men choosing their sons and brothers-in-law; but we also failed to use our prerogative to shape a system that would work ... our failure to promote accountability has hurt us.""

blow by blow job

wonkette gets her full court press passage.

saudi sores

"WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department on Thursday ordered the departure of non-essential U.S. government employees and family members from Saudi Arabia because of security concerns."

condimania

feeling it?

hot topping

the pizza delivery guy last night gave me a fridge magnet for east village radio.com.

air forceps

anybody listening to air america?

park n ride

i read a biography of butch cassidy while i was on vacation. probably the most interesting part was the mystery surrounding his death. as the movie implied, it was long thought that he and harry longabaugh aka the sundance kid were killed in a shootout in bolivia but there were various reports of future encounters with cassidy back in the states including one from his sister. but even the veracity of her account has been deemed questionable.

ive got presence for everyone

back in the sad dull again. and just in time too, but for what i have no idea.

it was a tearful goodbye as i made my way to el aeropuerto. however, they were not shed for me but because of me. the twenty minute drive was too much of a burden for poor little aireta whose playdate with cousins was interrupted on my behalf. well, not exactly. playtime was over but the two were associated in her mind and no truth was to impede her tantrum. and it took an enormous amount of patience for me not to tender my less than laudatory appraisal of her antics. while her mother cajoled i fumed. so i felt not an uncertain amount of relief once my foot reached out for the curbstone and i was relieved of the need to be judicious in my consideration of the little ones. but the fates would have at me again as i was seated next to a thirteen month old boy with a proclivity for banging on anything within reach. god bless the ipod for without which i may be composing this post in shackles.

thats it for the moment. i have to reaquaint myself with the sofa and the tv. but yo, whats with the freakin cold?