drat fink

gouge away

finally getting through daniel ellsbergs memoir about the pentagon papers. heres a conversation between kissinger and nixon upon its release. how great is it to have those audio tapes?

one bit of trivia i just picked up was that neil sheehan, ellsbergs contact at the new york times, actually stole a copy of the papers from ellsberg. ellsberg had let sheehan read everything but only selectively released pages to the times until they had assured him the papers would receive the type of coverage he hoped to garner. ellsberg only mentions this anecdote as an aside at the end of a chapter with no editorial remarks so ill assume for the moment that it ultimately made no impact on their subsequent release. but i wonder what was sheehans ultimate motivation? maybe he was worried the times wouldnt print it and he would lose access to the documents. or maybe he thought that ellsberg could be arrested by the fbi at any moment and the documents would be lost. guess we will have to wait for neil sheehans memoirs to find out. meanwhile, heres an interview with sheehan.

wholesome american values

"This basic cluelessness explains a great deal, I think. It allows Americans to continue drawing a sharp distinction between their traditional domestic institutions and norms (pluralistic, legalistic and at least nominally democratic) and their behavior abroad (brutal, authoritarian, and, at its worst moments, downright fascistic.) It's a kind of imperial adaptation of what historian Pierre van den Berghe labeled 'herrenvolk democracy' -- in which egalitarian norms within the privileged class or race are combined with paternal and/or repressive treatment of subject peoples."

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