Friday, August 1, 2008

The silly stupid season...

Is Obama Too Fit to be President, the WSJ asks:
But in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.


I don't know about you, but I don't watch movies, TV shows, or look at fashion magazines unless they portray god-honest normal, obese Americans. You have to draw a line in the sand people...

and watch that line get blown away...

Remember Anthrax?

Bruce E. Ivins, a scientist who helped the FBI investigate the 2001 mail attacks, was about to face charges.
A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation.


What I'd like to see is evidence of motive. That's something I don't understand.

Penetrate



Penetrate, by DJ Micro.

This will start your weekend off bumpin'.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Billmon is back!!!

Billmon writes about McCain's current strategy and what it means:
But he and his new Rovian advisors now realize they won't have a prayer in November unless they can motivate the conservative base and (to use Lee Atwater's charming phrase) "strip the bark" off Obama. And they have to do it NOW, so McCain can pivot back to a softer, more upbeat message in September.

So that's exactly what McCain is doing – instantly, unapologetically, without shame or embarrassment. His enormous cynicism about the political process and his contempt for the voters – not to mention his vast sense of self-entitlement -- have led McCain to take the same low road as the Bush family and its various henchmen (Atwater, Rove): Whatever works; whatever it takes.

And so it’s finally dawning, even on his media "base" (ever the hapless clowns in our political theater of the absurd ) that McCain isn’t quite the straight-talking, straight-shooting military man of honor they thought he was. The White Knight has morphed into the Great White Hope – the GOP machine’s last, desperate chance to avoid the mortal humiliation of being defeated not just by a Democrat, not just by a liberal, but by a liberal Democratic black man.

Billmon was one of the greatest voices of sanity in the 2000-2004 period, spanning the election debacle, 9/11, and the invasion of Iraq. A great analyst and a great writer.

Notable comment

South Side says this, in response to a Matthew Yglesias post:
Actually, I think the day after the election, if Obama wins, the media will suddenly realize/care that we have a massive budget deficit, two wars, gas prices through the roof, and an expansion of the executive branch's powers never contemplated by the Founders, and will preemptively declare President-elect Obama's administration a failure unless all those issues can be fixed within 10 months.

Secrets



Secrets, by Mutiny UK.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Middleman

I've been enjoying the first six episodes of Middleman (ABC family, monday nights). You can download episodes on iTunes. Smart, interesting, and damn funny.

Flashback



Flashback, by Laurent Garnier. This has to be one of the funniest music videos ever made.

Holy Cow

Someone in the MSM finally admits the Israel-Iraq connection, and that person is Joe Klein:
I have now been called antisemitic and intellectually unstable and a whole bunch of other silly things by the folks over at the Commentary blog. They want Time Magazine to fire or silence me. This is happening because I said something that is palpably true, but unspoken in polite society: There is a small group of Jewish neoconservatives who unsuccessfully tried to get Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, and then successfully helped provide the intellectual rationale for George Bush to do it in 2003. Their motivations involve a confused conflation of what they think are Israel's best interests with those of the United States. They are now leading the charge for war with Iran.

Honestly, having Iraq occupied by a close ally was never truly in Israel's best interests.

Update: More here.

Update 2: For a better overview of the hubbub, check out this.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Poor Leno



Poor Leno by Royksopp.

Monday, July 28, 2008

SPM

TPM seems especially snarky today. Maybe its just me.

I appreciate the attitude though.

Cuil

Cuil is a new Google wanna-be.

However it fails the Literateria test: search for Literateria and this blog does not show up.

On Google, Literateria is the first result.

Cuil equals fail, imo. There you go.

Wordiness

Kevin Drum observes that traditional media is often too wordy in the wrong places:
And yet.....having said that, spending a lot of time on the internet, as I have since 2002, has rubbed my nose in something that hadn't really bothered me before then: namely just how overwritten so many books and magazine articles are. Seymour Hersh? He's great. You could also cut every one of his pieces by at least 50% and lose exactly nothing. And I'm not picking on Hersh. At a guess, I'd say that two-thirds of the magazine pieces I read could be sliced by nearly a third or more without losing much. That's true of a lot of books too.

Balmes



Balmes (a better life), by Ian Pooley, featuring Esthero. Exquisite animation.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

The Process

Dropp



A fan-made video for Dropp, by Autechre. Hypnotic but well done.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Tomorrow's Girls


Tomorrow's Girls, by Donald Fagan.

Friday, July 25, 2008

The Man With the Red Face



The Man With the Red Face, performed live by Laurent Garnier.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

A suggestion

(re: the post below)

Instead of getting one's panties in a bunch over homosexuals openly serving in the military, how about we pay attention to the epidemic of military sexual trauma (a.k.a.: rape by soldiers on soldiers)?
There are more women serving in the military than ever before, and they're in danger—but not just from combat. Last year, nearly 1,400 women reported being assaulted and raped by their fellow soldiers, in some cases by their commanding officers. The shocking phenomenon is called military sexual trauma, or MST.

It is incredibly dishonest to worry that homosexuals will lead to an increasingly sexualized military when our military--full of young men and women--is already sexualized, with some real problems coming from it.

Two Months Off



Two Months Off, by Underworld.

you bring light in...

to a dark place
walking in light
glowing walking in light
gold ring around you
the hues of you
the golden sunlight of you

you bring light in...

cool wind following
following after you
rising for you
your skin beautiful
everything comes natural
fantastic fan
rocking rocking floating

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Little Fluffy Clouds



The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Shopping psychology

Buyer Beware: The Many Ways Retailers Can Trick You
Other tricks, such as this one documented in a study last year, are more subtle:

A salesperson can totally alter a window shopper's inclination to buy something by simply asking the right question. When a salesperson asks a shopper which of several items she prefers, the shopper tends to skip the whole "Should I buy it at all?" question and go straight to the "Which one should I buy?" phase. The study was done in simulated tests and in real-world retail situations.

“Stating a preference appears to induce a which-to-buy mindset, leading people to think about which of several products they would like to buy under the implicit assumption they have already decided to buy one of them,” wrote Alison Jing Xu and Robert S. Wyer, Jr. of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “Consequently, they are more disposed to make a purchase than they otherwise would be.”


Caveat emptor.

Fish pedicures

Fish pedicures: Carp rid human feet of scaly skin

At first this sounds incredibly creepy.

But if you think about it, its much less creepy than botox treatment--which is essentially putting poison under your skin.

Transformer



Transformer by Gnarls Barkley.

update: fwiw, this version is better than the one on the album.

This landscape of you

This landscape of you
twin capped peaks beckoning me to climb
beech forests of dappled sunlight
golden fields on hills
caves of unkempt secrets
pools of thought
and even when I hold you close
and feel your warmth
I listen to the wind
and hear you breath.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

"A butterfly does not become a caterpillar,"

A butterfly does not become a caterpillar,
and a tree does not become a seed;
and like a butterfly or a tree,
no matter how fond we are
of what we have been,
we are each of us irrevocable outcomes,
in our cases
of decision and chance.
Our lives are mad gambles played with flesh,
and while some are horrified
at the bare bones nature of this high stakes game,
others revel with abandon.

I cannot not love you.
I cannot unflutter my heart
when I see your face
hear your voice
glance into your eyes.
What I do not know
is the balance of this love—
how much of love is a decision?
how much is chance?
Like a fire,
it began with a spark—
like a house on fire
parts of me are smoldering
parts of me are rapt
with conflagration.

I tug at the elbow of the maitre de jeu
placing even more into the game—
without really knowing
what the chips mean—
no one knows
and yet everyone plays.
I am playing as if my chips were on fire—
if my decision was wrong
then only chance can save me—
and yet I feel so sure—
surer than a seed or caterpillar
ever could be.

Kritzel



Kritzel, by Christian Kleine. Love the Blade Runner echo throughout. (Note: just a homemade video... that's why there's not much to look at. Enjoy.)

Saturday, July 19, 2008

journal

The word I distrust most is “I”—
I am not what I thought I was;
I have not become what I dreamed;
I am the unreliable
narrator in this story of self—
the path is either strewn with leaves,
or there is no path there at all.

I want—do I really?
I need—why? tell me why?
a constant internal haggle,
a marriage with myself
based on unfulfilled promises
and unfulfilling love—
my voice grates against my ears,
and so I whisper,
except when I don’t.

I thought I was moral,
but I have done questionable things.
I thought I was a lover,
but I left those who loved me.
I thought I was many things
I have turned out not to be.

If my personality were deconstructed
in the way these words could be—
“I” encompasses too much
for a one-letter word—
sparks of passion
wrestling with an ambition
that is uncomfortable with itself—
a boy tyrant shouting,
“This is the way the world should be”,
at the old man who whispers,
“This is the way the world is”—
a writer
who does and doesn’t know
what I am
(or is),
or could be.

The garden party
the sweet fragrance of wild mint
unfinished poems.

Uranium mining at the Grand Canyon

Bush administration refuses to halt uranium mining near Grand Canyon.

China memories

Howard French on an oral history of China:
Master Deng's life, and almost every other oral history in Liao Yiwu's new book, appropriately subtitled Real-Life Stories, China From the Bottom Up, gives the lie to this entire vision, making this a deeply subversive book. I do not mean the reader should expect a tract or treatise on Chinese politics. Instead, Liao casts aside the official "facts" of events and replaces them with "memories"--with the resulting contrast between the censored record and interior consciousness revealing a post-1949 China that has never stopped being a traumatic place. At their root, all of Liao's "real-life" stories share something fundamental: a fantastic, dreamy and nightmarish quality.

Jury Duty

From Phil Nugent:
As it happens, one night during my jury service in New Orleans, my grandmother came to town and I took her to see Jerry Lewis in Damn Yankees at the Saenger, and damned if one of my fellow jurors wasn't there, in her real-life role as an usher. When we saw each other again at the courthouse the next Monday, she told me that she had been a little wary of me, thinking that perhaps I deliberately dressed the way I did in hopes of making the lawyers and judges reluctant to put me on a jury, but that after having seen how I dressed to escort my beloved grandmother to an evening of theater, she now realized that I just didn't know any better.

I am a freak



I am a freak, by Younger Brother.

Friday, July 18, 2008

H.E.

“How does it hurt you?” That, my friends, is the coolly rational voice of homo economicus. While H.E. has his virtues, and can often help you think straight, sometimes you just have to tell him to fuck off.

Quotable

General Wesley Clark:
You'll never get the country to believe Democrats can defend our country until Democrats start standing up to defend other Democrats.

Don't Stop Movin



Don't Stop Movin' from S Club 7.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

In the morning



In the morning, by Junior Boys.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

49 Percent



49 Percent by Royksopp.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

It Just Won't Do



It Just Won't Do, by Tim Deluxe

Monday, July 14, 2008

Sociology of the internets

PZ Myers receives threats of violence through the email. I'm a bit amazed at the 830-plus comments (the volume, not the mixture of stupidity and brilliance).

Threats of violence are actionable in a court of law. So should you, dear reader, lack common sense and/or common decency, I request that you be completely and utterly specific in describing how and why you will kill your intended victim when sending that intended victim an email. Trust me, you'll feel a lot better about it after you hit the send button. And so will the rest of us, when you are safely confined (our safety, not yours) in prison.

It is actually not surprising that Myers has received these threats: his blog is sufficiently controversial enough, and sufficiently anti-conservative. While his political views, when he rarely expresses them, skew left, his blog is for the most part politically neutral. What riles people up is his brash proselytization of atheism, his attacks on religious figures and what he considers to be religious idiocies, and his adamant defense of evolution. Any individual who routinely mocks irrational beliefs while praising rationality is a tempting target for the irrational among us. That's the way it is.

Frankly, the reason why I read PZ Myers is that he makes me think. I generally agree with his perspective, if I differ on ultimate conclusions.

For example, I am an atheist by default, in that I believe that if there is a supreme deity that he (or she) has heretofore shown absolutely no need or desire to be worshiped by little pipsqueaks like us. For example, if you believe in prayer, well more power to you, but all of the evidence I have seen suggests that you are more likely to get what you want if you just call a random stranger on the telephone. At least with a random stranger you have some evidence that they are actually listening to you (until they hang up).

But I for one do not care to mock religion. To my knowledge, no actual human society has ever been found or described that did not have an organized religion. Religion can inspire people to be amazing, altruistic, and wonderful human beings. But it can also, and often has, inspired people to be cruel, depraved, and inhumane.

I can imagine living without religion, and I do so now. But I am skeptical whether societies can live without religion. I am willing to be proved wrong. The question is, is everyone else?

Update: PZ also deals with sock-puppets. Hilarious, actually.

Harder, better, faster, stronger



Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, by Daft Punk. Happy Bastille Day!

Truth will out

Jesse Taylor fills us in on the conspiracy:
Barack Obama, a man whose powers of time travel have already been seen a few times during this campaign (such as when he went back in time and manufactured his own birth certificate), once again shows the secrets of the universe unlocked by his fascist tinkering with the edges of perception and reality. He apparently engineered not only the placement of the Democratic Convention a full month before he declared his candidacy (easy enough, given that he probably did the latter once the former was ensured), but also engineered the very placement and nicknaming of the city of Denver.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Today's Foxtrot...

Today's Foxtrot references Penny Arcade, PvP, xkcd, and The Joy of Tech.

Sweet Dreams my LA Ex



Sweet Dreams my LA Ex, from Rachel Stevens.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Friday, July 11, 2008

Remind Me



Remind Me, by Royksopp. This is one of the best videos I have ever seen. Visually enchanting.

Our current climate is stupid...

Global warming denialist denies that summer is warmer than winter.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Frontier Psychiatrist



Frontier Psychiatrist, by The Avalanches. This was from an interesting album, composed entirely by sampling and scratching. Apparently it took over 6 months to obtain legal clearances once the album was in the can.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Drop the pressure



Drop the pressure, by Mylo.

TSA considering shock-bracelets for air passengers

Want some torture with your peanuts?

You can watch the promotional video here. (Relevant info starts around the 3:00 mark)

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Wherein I make a point...

but I worry that I might be too nuanced:
Actors and Musicians are brands. They have to advertise themselves in order to sell their work.

Scientists have to sell themselves too, but only to other scientists. But instead of spending a currency of celebrity, they tend to sell ideas and elegant experimental designs (also, scientists don't always have good people skills).

On the one hand it is absurd. But celebrity journalism reflects the values of our society.

On the other hand, celebrity journalism is an important business tool for actors and musicians. Don't think of them, then, as people, when they show up in the gossip sheets. Think of them as Tide, Tums, and Huggies. Only... with a human face.

This was written in response to this, which is terribly clever (and which I've already linked to today).

Sunscreen...

Sunscreen may not be all that safe:
Oxybenzone and similar cancer-causing chemicals in sunscreens contribute to the minority view that sunscreens actually cause more and deadlier cancers than they prevent. Several small studies have found an increased risk of malignant melanoma, by far the deadliest form of skin cancer, among regular users of sunscreens.

An online sunscreen guide.

And finally a bit of snark:
Total UV protection is within reach and has been used for millennia. It's called clothing.

Your thoughtful laugh of the day.

What if scientists were treated like celebrities? (h/t Pharyngula)

Well, duh.

I will nonetheless bet my neighbor's cat's bad habits that editorialists will endlessly recycle this story as a measure of the severity of the housing bust.

Crazy



Crazy, by Gnarls Barkley.

The original video for this song is visually fantastic, just fyi.

Update: Link wuz borken. Now fixxed.

Lincoln says...

I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood . . . .
(h/t Glenn Greenwald)

Monday, July 7, 2008

Woof, I say.

An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote:
“Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”
The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’ for the same price.”
“But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.”

From: LaughLab.

Horizons



Horizons by LTJ Bukem

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Free



Free by Ultra Nate. Not sure what's up with the surgical chic... but the song is a club classic nonetheless.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

F.E.A.R.



F.E.A.R. by Ian Brown

Friday, July 4, 2008

Yes We Can



Happy July 4th!

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Sunrain



Sunrain by LTJ Bukem.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

In my arms



In my arms, by Mylo.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Ordinary Day



Matt Bianco's Ordinary Day from 2004. The video was reconstructed, thus the occasional still image. The album this is from, Matt's Mood, is fantastic btw.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Sneaking out the back door



Another video from a very 1980s Matt Bianco...

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Drink to moving on



Drink to moving on, by Grand National.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Music and Wine



Music and Wine, by Blue Six.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Destroy Rock and Roll



Destroy Rock and Roll, by Mylo.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Spain wins semi-!

Congrats to Spain, who now progress to the final of Euro2008. Hopefully Villa will make a quick recovery and be able to play Sunday.

I was able to catch most of the second half. Spain's first two goals were utterly brilliant.

Safe from harm



Massive Attacks' Safe from harm.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

More than I can bear



More than I can bear, by the jazz-band-turned-pop band Matt Bianco.

A peculiar story arc

Larry Johnson's Strange Trip: How a onetime hero of the liberal blogosphere and the Democratic Party spread perhaps the most damaging anti-Obama smear of the primary.

Negislation

Promoting travel by making it more expensive:
[T]he conversation turned to a piece of legislation that’s being pushed hard by lobbyists for big players in the tourism industry, the so-called Travel Promotion Act. The Act is supposed to create a $200 million fund to promote tourism, by levying a charge on visitors to the US. The charge is non-trivial – the estimates I heard suggested that in order to raise $10 a head to give to the travel industry’s promotional fund, the government will likely have to impose a total fee of $25 to cover administrative overheads.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Fruit



The Fruit by Sander Kleinenberg... with a v. prominent iPod in the video...

Monday, June 23, 2008

Mmmm Monday... time to get out of bed



Get outta your lazy bed, by the jazz-band-turned-pop band Matt Bianco, live on Top of the Pops. Look carefully, that's Basia singing the female lead.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Geriatric animals

Fascinating article on the aging wildlife population in zoos:
The Golden Years have arrived at the nation's zoos and aquariums, and that is taking veterinarians and keepers, along with their animals, into a zone of unknowns.

Do female gorillas, now frequently living in to their 40s and 50s, experience menopause?

Can an aging lemur suffer from dementia?

How do you weigh the most difficult choice — between prolonging pain and ending life — when the patient is a venerable jaguar who's been around so long she's come to feel like a member of the family?

All of those questions hang on a larger one that, until recent years, has been left to educated guesswork based on limited evidence.

Yes, Mylo might just be god...



Mylo's radio remix of No More Conversations by Freeform Five.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Saturday meme, pork and beans...



Pork and Beans by Weezer. I love this video.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Faster Kill Pussycat



Faster Kill Pussycat, by Paul Oakenfold. Get those muscles moving...

Unobvious note

There actually is a bank that isn't first: The Fifth Third Bank.

Does this mean they were the fifth bank to come in third?

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Transcendental comedy



The writing on the Colbert report is probably the sharpest there is on TV.

Programming note

Here on out, I will be posting a new music video every morning at 9:00.

Inside and Out



Feist does a wonderful BeeGees cover.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Here I go again, pissing off would-be commentators...

Muslims against Sharia is pissed off at me.

I think this individual is a troll, and may even be properly considered a concern troll.

Here are a couple of things that don't add up in Muslims against Sharia's comment.

First: "We admit that most terrorists are Muslims [...]"

This statement is bogus. Most of the terrorists that we see on the nightly news are Muslim, but that's because most of the terrorists that American forces are dealing with are in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also this stereotype is further emphasized by Palestinian and Hezbollah attacks on Israel that receive press coverage in the states.

Look around. There are terrorists everywhere. Until recently there were terrorists in Ireland (Christian). In the 1970s and 1980s there were terrorists in Germany and Italy (both communist and US-sponsored). Currently in Sri Lanka there are the Tamil Tigers (Hindi). In Colombia there is the FARC (communist). There are lots more elsewhere. They usually don't make the nightly news because their political aims and political targets aren't sufficiently newsworthy for American audiences.

So right off the bat, this troll feeds anti-Muslim stereotypes.

Second, this troll makes a sweeping statement: "Where are all the so-called "Islamic civil rights groups" like CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, MAS, etc. who are quick to defend every Islamic terrorist, but are silent when Muslims in general are being denigrated?"

Now, I'm not personally familiar with these organizations, but I've at least heard of a few of them. I cannot believe that they are all terrorist sympathizers. This statement doesn't pass my BS-meter, and actually strikes me as a smear against these Muslim-American and Arab-American organizations.

Third, this troll denigrates several people who have been associated with Senator Obama and makes a claim that "Mr. Obama's website is insulting to hundreds of millions of people." Looks to me like someone is engaging in disingenuous hyperbole, and that the whole point of this comment is to smear Obama.

Update: If you feel the need to respond to my characterizations, please go to where the hubbub is.

Live with me



From Collected by Massive Attack.

Time to update Firefox

I'm always late to the party, even when I receive an invitation; but Firefox 3.0 is here.

Now that we have $4 a gallon gas...

You might want to read the essay where I wrote this:
Economically, suburbs and exurbs are not sustainable, as their very existence requires both a thriving metropolitan area and cheap fuel. Well gasoline is not going to become cheaper--although we might save on our long term costs by switching to hybrid cars. But... well I don't want to derail this entry too much by going into the state of our cities. Let's just say that my city, Rochester, gets by... but barely. Also, it is used to wearing a lot of hand-me-downs.


The truth is, off-shore drilling will do nothing to lower fuel prices in the United States when the main force driving up fuel prices is increased demand in the so-called third world (especially since there really isn't much oil off our coasts).

Link rot

Just a note: sometimes links expire.

Sulu to get married

George Takei and Brad Altman first to get marriage license in West Hollywood

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

One of the best songs of the 20th century



Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy.

Huh?

The Associated Press wants bloggers to pay $12.50 to quote as few as five words from an AP article.

Not only does this show a level of cluelessness about the culture of the internet, it also appears to fly in the face of copyright law: everyone is entitled to fair use quotations of published works.

From the U.S. Copyright Office's web-site:
The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.” (emphasis added)
I doubt that most of the AP's claims for remit from bloggers on the internets will pass legal scrutiny. The Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center's web-site is v. informative and has a good section on Fair Use.

Update: Mark Glaser on all of this. (h/t Atrios)

Monday, June 16, 2008

Making a note

for future reference: Glossary of Poetic Terms.

Fever



A Guy Called Gerald, from 2000.

USA wins 8-0

Team USA is competing for one of 3.5 slots for the 2010 World Cup. They just won their first qualifying game 8-0.

Here are the current standings.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Vive le point-virgule

Encouragingly, a Committee for the Defence of the Semicolon appeared on the web (only to disappear some days later, which cannot be a very good sign).

Projected projection changes

Poblano tweaks his methodology, and explains his changes. Regardless, the electoral landscape is looking good for Obama. Hopefully this keeps up

One Evening



I love this song, One Evening, by Feist.