...more recent posts
Rumor has it that the success of HBO's Deadwood has led to a greenlight for an even more obscene and depraved series about another patch of land utterly beyond the reach of the law -- Gitmo.
Sunday May 16th at 8:00 PM, Channel 13 airs Pale Male, the movie about the famous Fifth Avenue Red-tailed Hawk.
On the subject of whether Nick Berg was a you-know-what for the you-know-what or the you-know-what, here's an interesting tidbit:
Meanwhile, the family said Berg had been questioned by the FBI more than a year ago about a contact he had with a terrorism suspect in 1999, while he was a student at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.Maybe working und3rc0ver in the US at that time?A senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the terror suspect appears to have been acquainted with Zacarias Moussaoui, an al-Qaida adherent now in federal custody and awaiting trial on conspiracy charges stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks.
The official said an e-mail address traced to Berg had been used by the unidentified individual with purported terror connections, but a 2002 investigation showed Berg had never met the individual and had not given the e-mail address to that person.
Michael Berg told reporters Thursday that his son was cleared of any wrongdoing. He said Nicholas Berg met the suspect while riding the bus to classes, and had allowed the suspect to use his computer.
Very bad news in Najaf:
Four holes, about 12 inches (30 centimeters) by eight, are visible on the [Imam Ali] shrine's dome, AP cited one of reporters as saying. They appeared to have been caused by machinegun fire, it said.I would not be surprised if Bush had never heard of this shrine.
The Rites of Spring (click on rites of spring procession) pageant creates and presents 8 hours of performance, dance, music, art, and poetry throughout the network of Lower East Side gardens. The spectacular day-long pilgrimmage features giant puppets, mobile sculptures, ceremonial art objects, costumed garden characters, and Brazilian, African, and Dominican bands, weaving throughout the neighborhood to visit the network of gardens. The diverse cultural traditions and history of the neighborhood gardens are honored with collaborative presentations by the gardeners and artists at each garden site.
Throughout the day a mythic drama is enacted, in which Gaia(who represetns the gardens) is born, married, kidnapped, and then saved at the end of the day. The closing ceremony at the Green Oasis Garden celebrates the victory of the community and the preservation of the gardens with music, poetry and the release of 50 live butterflies for the protection of the gardens.
"but I was wrong" "I'm a little slow" "...I assumed"
Democratic challenger John Kerry said on Wednesday his first choice as defense secretary would be Republican Sen. John McCain.
Setting aside my personal opinions of these two men, which obviously don't mean much, I think this is a brilliant move by Kerry (in terms of winning the election.)
Beautiful aerial photo of a single cab driving through a snowed in Brooklyn. More aerial NYC shots here. (via kottke)
"No dates, no numbers, no money. This is a nonprofit organization."
It's funny, I saw this man yesterday and was wondering what was going on. Yet another question answered...
Good reminiscence by Tony Hendra, via cursor.org, about the rise and fall of the National Lampoon.
I thought you low-fi animated gif-ers might find this amusing: an overlay to pixelate your television.
Japanese costume catalogue
via mister pants
Maybe it's time to consider a new and exciting career "under minimal supervision."
gratuitous use of the term "blog" for a rooftop gardening story.
I like Safari a lot and I am loving OSX (I waited a long time...the upgrade from OS 8.6 is gratifying to say the least). But here's one thing that's buggin me -- these simulated shadows behind the windows. Who decided we need tromp l'oeil in order to get around the computer?
-28C in the Bay of Fundi. Pictures from the Coast Guard ship Sir william Alexander.
LiTraCon: light transmitting concrete. Check this picture.
Regarding the prisoner abuse in Iraq, it is funny that it’s being spun as a mirror image of the ongoing insurgency: “just a few bad apples”, but even army-adorationist Ralph Peters understands that it’s disastrous. Wasn’t it just last week Dave posted that foreign policy review mentioning the symbolic blindness of using a hated prison for essentially the same purpose it had under Saddam? “Meet the new boss: same as the old boss.”
Still, while I’d like to see the Geneva Convention as humane and progressive, there’s a sense in which it’s just a way of legitimating war. One of the great American myths I heard as a child was about how the clever colonial revolutionaries defeated the effete British who were so stupid that they just marched up in well-ordered lines presenting our crafty (guerrilla) sharpshooters with easy targets. In fact, the Brits were practicing “civilized” and “honorable” war as it had been developed in Europe over centuries, ameliorating the martial chaos of the Dark Ages, and they thought that the colonists weren’t playing fair or going by the “rules of war.” (In keeping with the May Day theme, it may be noted that to the Europeans it was evident that the colonials had lost touch with the cultural values of their motherland, having been made wild by living in a wild country.) But what’s with the notion of “we’re going to kill you, but we’ll be polite about it”? When push comes to shove (comes to shoot) this stuff always goes out the window, and there’s a certain level of hypocrisy in pretending otherwise. Being nice about killing is not to be decried, but it’s just a small step on an old road; what we need is a quantum leap. War crimes is a redundancy.