everything i make is transitory

Come Visit...

2005-02-20T22:32:00.000Z

INSTApunditry!@hurie.org.

INSTApunditry!

2004-11-14T20:32:00.000Z

INSTApunditry! has moved to instapunditry.blogspot.com.

Come and Visit!

2004-10-10T20:59:00.000Z

Check out our three blogs:

For arts, culture and technology, try Everything Is Transitory.

For politics, sports, pop culture and more, try INSTApunditry!

To see what's new on the Internet and in the world, try the NEWSjunkie.

New Site

2004-10-07T17:59:00.000Z

This blog has been moved to my website, www.hurie.org.

The blog is here.

I also feature a new blog, INSTApunditry!

I hope to see you at my new home.

Packin' Up

2004-10-06T08:59:00.000Z

I'm pleased to announce that Everything I Make Is Transitory will be moving to a new home in the next several days.

In the meantime, no new posts (or at least not six a day).

So the five of you that actually read this website on a regular basis will just have to wait.

I'll post new information as soon as possible.

Audio Bytes

2004-10-05T15:59:00.000Z

Prepare for the debate: Hear William Saletan of Slate (which is going to be bought by the Washington Post, in case you missed it) talk with NPR's Alex Chadwick.

Also, read Saletan's current column from Slate.

We've just reached the crux of the presidential campaign—the moment in which one candidate, purporting to expose the other's fatal flaw, has instead exposed his own.

Saturday morning, President Bush attacked John Kerry for a comment Kerry made in Thursday night's debate. Here's how Bush described Kerry's remark:

He said that America has to pass a global test before we can use American troops to defend ourselves. That's what he said. Think about this. Sen. Kerry's approach to foreign policy would give foreign governments veto power over our national security decisions. I have a different view. When our country is in danger, the president's job is not to take an international poll. The president's job is to defend America. I'll continue to work every day with our friends and allies for the sake of freedom and peace. But our national security decisions will be made in the Oval Office, not in foreign capitals.

This description, which Bush continues to repeat at campaign stops and in television ads, is plainly false. In his first answer of the debate, Kerry said, "I'll never give a veto to any country over our security." But if that isn't what Kerry meant by a "global test," what did he mean? Let's go back and look at Kerry's words.

"No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you've got to do in a way that passes the test—that passes the global test—where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing, and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

Here we have our own secretary of state who's had to apologize to the world for the presentation he made to the United Nations. I mean, we can remember when President Kennedy, in the Cuban missile crisis, sent his secretary of state to Paris to meet with [French President Charles] de Gaulle, and in the middle of the discussion to tell them about the missiles in Cuba, [the secretary of state] said, 'Here, let me show you the photos.' And de Gaulle waved them off, and said, 'No, no, no, no. The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me.' How many leaders in the world today would respond to us, as a result of what we've done, in that way?"

It's clear from Kerry's first sentence that the "global test" doesn't prevent unilateral action to protect ourselves. But notice what else Kerry says. The test includes convincing "your countrymen" that your reasons are clear and sound. Kerry isn't just talking about satisfying France. He's talking about satisfying Ohio. He's talking about you.

What do you have in common with a Frenchman? Look again at Kerry's words. He says the test is to "prove" that our reasons for attacking were legitimate. In the next sentence, he gives an example of someone failing that test: Colin Powell's February 2003 presentation to the United Nations about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What did Powell apologize for? The inaccuracy of our intelligence. Kerry contrasts this with the trust France once placed in American spy photos.

Proof, intelligence, spy photos. The pattern is obvious. The test isn't moral. It's factual. What you and the Frenchman share is the evidence of your senses. The global test is the measurement of the president's assertions against the real world, the world you and I can see.

This is the test Bush has failed. He has failed to produce evidence for his prewar claims of Iraqi WMD and operational ties to al-Qaida, or for his postwar claims of success against the insurgency. Now he's going further. He's not simply failing the test. He's refusing to take it.

Listen to Bush's words again. "The president's job is not to take an international poll," he says. "Our national security decisions will be made in the Oval Office, not in foreign capitals." Bush doesn't say these decisions belong to the United States. He says they belong to the Oval Office. He frames this as patriotism, boasting that he doesn't care whether he offers evidence sufficient to convince people in France. He shows no awareness or concern that evidence is also necessary to convince people in Ohio. He says it isn't his job to take a "poll," to hear what others think. He needs no validation.

Bush pretends he's just blowing off the French. But his comments show a pattern of blowing off external feedback in general. He shrugs off information that debunks his claims about WMD, arguing that it's more important for a president to understand the overall nature of the world. He defines credibility as agreement with himself. He reinterprets evidence of policy mistakes in postwar Iraq as evidence of success. In Thursday's debate, he dismissed unwelcome reports from that country as too offensive to heed. And according to Sunday's New York Times, he and his aides exaggerated Iraq's nuclear capability, ignoring warnings from "the government's foremost nuclear experts."

Bush claims he has done all this to protect you. But that claim is precisely what's challenged by the evidence he conceals or disregards. What he's protecting you from is the ability to measure his assertions against the world that you and I can see. That's the global test he's mocking. And he expects you to applaud him for it, because he thinks you resent the French so much you'd rather have a president accountable to no one.

Good Websites

2004-10-05T12:59:00.000Z

Another positive result from the Google common search:

The Nine Planets: A Multimedia Tour of the Solar System

It's a pretty easy-to-use site, with good information and pictures.

Take a tour.

Update: Noble Prize in Literature

2004-10-05T01:59:00.000Z

Current Odds for the Prize:

Adonis (Syria) 6-4

Joyce Carol Oates (USA) 9-4

Thomas Transtromer (Sweden) 4-1

Hugo Claus (Belgium) 9-1

Antonio Tabucchi (Italy) 12-1

Cees Nooteboom (Netherlands) 16-1

Ko Un (South Korea) 25-1

[via readabet.com]

I don't know. I agree with Adonis, but I think some of the ones from the other post have just as good a shot.

Good Websites

2004-10-04T21:59:00.000Z

One positive note from today's Google common word search: findagrave.com, which is definitely worth a visit.

I especially liked the "Posthumous Reunions" feature.

It's a nice touch.

An Experiment

2004-10-04T18:59:00.000Z

As I understand it, Google's PageRank feature is basically a measure of how many sites link to a page (and the quality of those linker sites). Certainly, it is more complicated, but basically...

So if I search common words that appear on many many websites, it should tell me (sort of) the absolute PageRank, meaning, how disparate sites like espn.com and cnn.com and wikipedia.org compare.

Right?

Well, that's the question that we seek to answer today.

The five most common words in English (in ascending order): the, of, to, and, a

So, if I search "the", look at what pops up:

The Onion | America's Finest News Source™
A farcical newspaper featuring world, national and community news.
www.theonion.com/ - Similar pages

Welcome to the White House
Whitehouse.gov is the official web site for the White House and President
George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States. ...
www.whitehouse.gov/ - 34k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

AlltheWeb.com
AlltheWeb :: find it all. Web | News | Pictures | Video | Audio. Advanced Search;
Customize Preferences. Results in: Any Language English. ...
www.alltheweb.com/ - 5k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Economist.com
... More Info, THE GLOBAL AGENDA. Latest news analysis. ... George Bush and John Kerry have
clashed head-on for the first time, in a televised debate on foreign policy. ...
www.economist.com/ - 66k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Welcome to NASA
The nasa.gov site requires that JavaScripts be enabled in
your browser. For instructions, click here.
www.nasa.gov/ - 4k - Cached - Similar pages

Guardian Unlimited
... Prostitutes on the street, Streets of despair Ed Vulliamy meets some of the
thousands of children trafficked to the West every month. ...
www.guardian.co.uk/ - 76k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

www.weather.com/
Similar pages

The Register: Sci/Tech News for the World
... Sun Thumper server plans excavated by The Reg. Exclusive Opteron is go go go,
USAF ... BOFH. BOFH: What to do when the Boss gets touchy-feely. ...
www.theregister.co.uk/ - 22k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Times Online - Home
... Mystery of PM's new home American Martha Greene, left, who runs one of London's
trendiest restaurants, played a background role in the purchase of the Blairs ...
www.timesonline.co.uk/ - Similar pages

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program
... Grab a properly chilled beverage and enjoy. The FSF continues its support of
the GIMP2004-06-10. ... The GIMP wins an OSI Merit Award!2004-06-10. ...
www.gimp.org/ - 8k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Search "of":

The Library of Congress
Home page of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC The Library of Congress is
the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, and it serves as the research ...
www.loc.gov/ - 15k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

United States House of Representatives, 108th Congress, 2nd ...
The United States House of Representatives, 108th Congress, 2nd Session: Information
on the United States House of Representatives. Skip Main House Banner, ...
www.house.gov/ - 59k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

US Department of Education Home Page
Select a Topic, ...
www.ed.gov/ - 52k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

The United States Department of Labor Home Page, Secretary of ...
The US Department of Labor is charged with preparing the American workforce for
new and better jobs. ... of Labor. www.dol.gov. Search / AZ Index. October 2, 2004. ...
www.dol.gov/ - 39k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Census Bureau Home Page
... Business, Economic Census - Survey of Business Owners · Government · E-Stats ·
NAICS · Foreign Trade. Geography, Maps · TIGER · Gazetteer. ...
www.census.gov/ - 22k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

US Department of Transportation
... Careers in Motion. About DOT. Freedom of Information Act. Frequently Asked Questions.
Downloads. ... Truckers. Hours of service (new rules). Motor Carrier Companies. ...
www.dot.gov/ - 19k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

DOJ: US Department of Justice Home Page
Attorney General Remarks. September 13, 2004. Attorney General Ashcroft Delivers
Remarks at the 10th Anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act Symposium. ...
www.usdoj.gov/ - 21k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Official website of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH is one
of the world's foremost medical research centers. An agency ...
www.nih.gov/ - 23k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

yourDictionary.com • Homepage
... The last word in words, Linguistic professionals for rock-bottom prices. Let our
world-wide network of translators translate for you. ... Word of the Day, ...
www.yourdictionary.com/ - 41k - Cached - Similar pages

USDA.gov - Home
... USDA Announces Conservation Effects Assessment Project Grant Recipients These four
projects will study the environmental benefits of federal conservation ...
www.usda.gov/ - 47k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Search "to":

Welcome to the White House
... Health Care Discussed on Thursday on "Ask the White House" Kristen Silverberg, Deputy
Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy Kristen Silverberg, Deputy ...
www.whitehouse.gov/ - 34k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Welcome to MSN.com
... Saturday, Oct 02. Today on MSN: Halloween mask sales used to predict election; College
football updates; ... Switch to broadband version. Make this your home page. ...
www.msn.com/ - 32k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Adobe Reader - Download
... To distribute Adobe Reader software or place an "Includes Adobe Reader"
logo on your printed material, see details. Step 1 of 2, ...
www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html - 39k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Macromedia Flash Player Download Center
... Macromedia Flash Player Download Center. We are unable to locate a single Web
player that best matches your platform and operating system. ...
www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/ index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash - 18k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Internet Explorer Home
The Microsoft Internet Explorer site provides overviews of the browser technology
and latest features, how-to articles for users, downloads, critical updates ...
www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ - 29k - Cached - Similar pages

My Way
... And the My Way search engine is powered by Google, so it's incredibly accurate.
Make My Way your way to search the Web! ... Nor do we send email to our users. ...
www.goto.com/ - 57k - Cached - Similar pages

MapQuest.Com Maps, Directions and More
Use MapQuest to find everything from airports to local businesses. ... About these results.
Use MapQuest to quickly find maps of more than 1,000 US cities. ...
www.mapquest.com/ - 65k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Librarians' Index to the Internet - lii.org
... California Wine. Mysteries and More. All Themes. A Strategic Partner of Califa,
Copyright © 2004, Librarians' Index to the Internet, lii.org. All rights reserved ...
lii.org/ - 15k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Welcome to Lycos!
Search: The Web Shopping News Pictures: ...
www.lycos.com/ - 17k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Netscape 7.2
• Enhanced Security, E-Mail Filters, Pop-up Blockers & More. • Easier than ever
to switch browsers - keep your favorites and browser settings. ...
wp.netscape.com/computing/download/ - 8k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Search "and":

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Hurricanes. Learn more about protecting your health and safety before and after a hurricane... more, It’s Time to Get Your Flu Vaccine. ...
www.cdc.gov/ - 55k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Barnes & Noble.com

... Book Cover Image. Title: Shopaholic and Sister, Author: Sophie Kinsella, * More Blockbuster Fiction. ... More New Releases. In Music In Music, Royalty and Rhythm. ...
www.barnesandnoble.com/ - 67k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages - Stock quotes: BKS

Welcome to NASA

The nasa.gov site requires that JavaScripts be enabled in your browser. For instructions, click here.
www.nasa.gov/ - 4k - Cached - Similar pages

Food and Drug Administration Home Page

... Biologics Vaccines, Blood Products... Animal Feed and Drugs Livestock, Pets... Cosmetics Safety, Labeling... ... FDA to Implement Menopause and Hormones Campaign. ...
www.fda.gov/ - 30k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

United States Patent and Trademark Office Home Page

This is the only official Web site of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, an Agency of the US Department of Commerce. ...
www.uspto.gov/ - 23k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

United States Department of Health and Human Services

HHS.gov is the website for the United States Department of Health and Human Services, led by Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, and based in Washington, DC. ...
www.os.dhhs.gov/ - 29k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

US Securities and Exchange Commission (Home Page)

US Securities and Exchange Commission: official Federal Agency website, including news, legal and other releases and reports, investor education material, and ...
www.sec.gov/ - 36k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

globeandmail.com - Canada's best source for news continuously ...

The most authoritiative news in Canada featuring articles from The Globe and Mail, breaking news coverage, national news, international news, sports, weather ...
www.globeandmail.com/ - 78k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

MapQuest.Com Maps, Directions and More

Use MapQuest to find everything from airports to local businesses. Choose a tab above and get started now. ... 3. Enter a city and state or ZIP. ...
www.mapquest.com/ - 65k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Merriam-Webster OnlineMerriam-Webster provides a free online dictionary, thesaurus, audio pronunciations, Word of the Day, word games, and other English language resources. ...
www.m-w.com/ - 14k - Cached - Similar pages

Search "a":

yourDictionary.com • Homepage

... FAQs The most frequently asked questions on our website. SPREAD THE WORD! Share us with a friend. ... Library, Dr. Language A Language is a Dialect with an Army. ...
www.yourdictionary.com/ - 41k - Cached - Similar pages

Apple

Apple The Apple Store iPod+iTunes .Mac QuickTime Apple Support Mac OS X. Hot News Switch Hardware Software Made4Mac Education Pro ...
www.apple.com/ - 16k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages - Stock quotes: AAPL

A List Apart

Skip navigation. A List Apart front page: HOME. ... Among those few, only a handful sport style sheets adjusted to the needs of handheld devices. ...
www.alistapart.com/ - 7k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

Find A Grave - Millions of Cemetery Records

Find A Grave is a resource for finding the final resting places of famous folks, friends and family members. Click Here. ... Who is behind Find A Grave? ...
www.findagrave.com/ - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

Adobe Reader - Download

... Adobe Reader license agreement. An accessible, text-only Adobe Reader download page is available if you are using a screen reader. ...
www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html - 39k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

MapQuest.Com Maps, Directions and More

Use MapQuest to find everything from airports to local businesses. Choose a tab above and get started now. ... Find a Business by Category. Here's How: ...
www.mapquest.com/ - 65k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

NCSA--A Beginner's Guide to HTML Home Page

... Many people use the NCSA Beginner's Guide to HTML as a starting point to understanding the hypertext markup language (HTML) used on the World Wide Web. ...
archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/ Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html - 37k - Cached - Similar pages

Avis -- Rent a Car

... My Avis Members Login Here » Not Yet a Member? Register » | Benefits, ... Always check Privacy for our most current policy. © 2004 Avis Rent A Car System, Inc. ...
www.avis.com/ - 63k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

The Nine Planets

The Nine Planets. A Multimedia Tour of the Solar System. by Bill Arnett. ... All of the planets can be seen with a small telescope; most can be seen with binoculars. ...
www.nineplanets.org/ - 18k - Cached - Similar pages

Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Online Car Rental Reservations US-UK-Canada ...Enterprise Rent-a-Car offers economy car rental to luxury car rental, cargo van rental and pickup truck rental. You can even rent a minivan or SUV. ...
www.enterprise.com/ - 59k - Oct 2, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

So what does this all mean?

Well, I'm not sure. Probably nothing. The 50 results listed here certainly feature an array of sites, with a heavy emphasis on .gov's and .org's.

Perhaps the government sites are often linked to, or perhaps Google has some sort of affinity for .gov's, or perhaps Google has a deal with the U.S. Government (though I doubt it).

Who knows?

So far, my experiment is not looking good, as my quest to get Google to rank all websites at once has failed. I really doubt that theonion.com is that popular.

This experiment gets more interesting, however, when you plug these same keywords into other seach engines.

Using Yahoo:

the

The Onion

satirical weekly newspaper.
Category: Parody > News
www.theonion.com - 38k - Cached - More pages from this site
Guardian Unlimited

Search this site. Today's picks. Digital Editions. News. Sunday October 03 2004. More news and comment. What you've been reading. Services. Book now. Wheels. Live online. Sponsored features
Category: United Kingdom > Newspapers > The Guardian

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.guardian.co.uk - More pages from this site
The Nation

Web Letters. Israel & the US; Bush's military record new. As he prepares to debate Dick Cheney, John Edwards should study up on Harry Truman.
Category: U.S. Progressive Politics > Magazines

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.thenation.com - More pages from this site
GIMP.ORG

freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
Category: Graphics Software > GIMP
www.gimp.org - 8k - Cached - More pages from this site
The White House

features statements and press releases by President George W. Bush as well as documents, an index of government information, history, and tour information.
Category: U.S. Government > The White House
www.whitehouse.gov - 33k - Cached - More pages from this site
The Washington Post

news, sports, opinion, and more for the nation, world, and Washington area.
Category: Washington, D.C. > The Washington Post
www.washingtonpost.com - 126k - Cached - More pages from this site
The Register: Sci/Tech News for the World

Biting the hand that feeds IT. Search. Tools/Services. 'So what do we do if Galileo's threatening American lives?' Gets them where they study. 1 Oct 2004 19:29. UT gets visual. 1 Oct 2004 18:28. Cross contamination
Category: United Kingdom > Technology News

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.theregister.co.uk - More pages from this site
theage.com.au - The Age

[12:27pm] Mark Latham has announced a $700 million plan to cut the price of medicines using savings identified by the government. more
Category: Australia > Victoria > Melbourne > Newspapers

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.theage.com.au - More pages from this site
Exploratorium, the museum of science, art and human perception

Exploratorium, the museum of science, art and human perception Exploratorium, the museum of science, art and human perception This World Wide Web (WWW) site, maintained for grades K to 12 by the Exploratorium, offers online resources to support...
Category: California > San Francisco > San Francisco Exploratorium
www.exploratorium.edu/index.html - More pages from this site
World Wide Web Consortium

W3C's nearly 400 member organizations lead the World Wide Web to its full potential. Founded by Tim Berners-Lee, the Web's inventor. The W3C Web site hosts specifications, guidelines, software and tools. Public participation is welcome. W3C ...
Category: WWW Organizations > World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.w3.org - More pages from this site

Library of Congress

Library of Congress Library of Congress This vast site, homepage of the Library of Congress of the United States, reflects the nature of that institution. Established in 1800, it is the oldest American federal cultural institution, and the ...
Category: U.S. Library of Congress
www.loc.gov - More pages from this site
U.S. House of Representatives

official site with links to representatives, committee offices, leadership offices, and more.
Category: U.S. House of Representatives
www.house.gov - 59k - Cached - More pages from this site
U.S. Department of Defense Official Website

DefenseLink.mil - The official website of the United States Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense, DoD, Defense, Defence, Military
Category: U.S. Department of Defense

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.defenselink.mil - More pages from this site
United States Department of Justice

mission is to enforce the law, defend the interests of the Unites States, ensure public safety, and ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.
Category: U.S. Department of Justice
www.usdoj.gov - 21k - Cached - More pages from this site
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

official site from New Line Cinema for Peter Jackson's film adaptations of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Features news, trailers, DVD links, and more.
Category: Movie Titles > Lord of the Rings Trilogy
www.lordoftherings.net - 7k - Cached - More pages from this site
U.S. Department of State

official site of the U.S. Department of State. Includes information about countries and regions, travelling and living abroad, and more.
Category: U.S. Department of State
www.state.gov - More pages from this site
Powers of ten

Powers of ten Powers of ten This Internet site, from the Optical Microscopy Division of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, provides optical microscopic photographs to help students understand orders of magnitude and presents content ...
Category: Science > Measurements and Units
micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/ scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html - More pages from this site
United States Department of Energy

United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy This World Wide Web (WWW) site, maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information, provides users with access from its ...
Category: U.S. Department of Energy
www.energy.gov - More pages from this site
Perl.com: The Source for Perl -- perl development, perl conferences

The official Perl home page, run by O'Reilly. Contains documentation, news, and links to a variety of resources, including the Open Source Perl conference.
Category: Programming Languages > Perl

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.perl.com - More pages from this site
Institute of Physics

Institute of Physics Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics is a "leading international professional body and learned society with over 37,000 members, which promotes the advancement and dissemination of a knowledge of and education in ...
Category: Institute of Physics > Institute Of Physics Publishing
www.iop.org - More pages from this site

Outdoor Research

designer and manufacturer of products for outdoor, recreation, and travel.
Category: Outdoor Gear > Brand Names
www.orgear.com - 13k - Cached - More pages from this site
Netscape.com

offers download for the latest browser version, as well as news, email, streaming music, and more.
Category: Browsers > Netscape
www.netscape.com - 60k - Cached - More pages from this site
HOT or NOT?

rate photos of others and post one of yourself.
Category: Entertainment Polls > X or Not?
www.hotornot.com - 10k - Cached - More pages from this site
OR-LIBRARY

Welcome to OR-Library. OR-Library is a collection of test data sets for a variety of Operations Research (OR) problems. These test data sets can be accessed via the WWW using the links below.
mscmga.ms.ic.ac.uk/info.html - 13k - Cached - More pages from this site
Microsoft Corporation

offers a wide range of software, services, and Internet technologies for personal and business computing.
Category: Computer Software > Business Applications
www.microsoft.com - 13k - Cached - More pages from this site
NPR : Audio Help

NPR Audio Help. NPR.org offers free audio streaming for Real and WindowsMedia players on Windows, MacOS, and Linux systems. Please select your "preferred player" for NPR.org audio:
www.npr.org/audiohelp - 32k - Cached - More pages from this site
Oregon Online has Moved

Oregon Online is now Oregon.gov. Please update your bookmarks. You will be automatically redirected in 3 seconds. Or you may. click here to go to the State's new site - Oregon.gov
www.state.or.us - 2k - Cached - More pages from this site
Oregon Tourism

brings Oregon's activities, regions and helpful hints to the surface, bringing you everything you need to plan your vacation.
Category: Convention and Visitors Bureaus > Oregon
www.traveloregon.com - 10k - Cached - More pages from this site
Arles Image Web Page Creator

Use Arles Image Web Page Creator to quickly and easily create image collections on the web. Arles creates high quality thumbnails, modifies images and automatically creates HTML pages for your online image collections.
digitaldutch.com/arles - 23k - Cached - More pages from this site
Operational Research Society

looks at an organisation's operations & uses mathematical/computer models, or analytical approaches. The Society, provides training, conferences, publications and info.
Category: United Kingdom > Operations Research > Organizations
www.orsoc.org.uk - More pages from this site

and

Barnes & Noble

includes listing of bestsellers. Features college textbooks, music, software, and online courses.
Category: Bookstores
www.barnesandnoble.com - 67k - Cached - More pages from this site
Welcome to Internet FDA

Welcome to Internet FDA Welcome to Internet FDA This World Wide Web (WWW) site, maintained by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provides information about the products regulated by the FDA and the agency's other responsibilities. ...
Category: U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
www.fda.gov/default.htm - More pages from this site
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

includes information on disease outbreaks, health topics, and emergency preparedness.
Category: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
www.cdc.gov - 55k - Cached - More pages from this site
Car and Driver

features buyers' guide, new vehicle reviews, listing of auto show events, news, and articles for automotive enthusiasts.
Category: Automotive Magazines > Car and Driver
www.caranddriver.com - 41k - Cached - More pages from this site
Amazon.com

online retailer of books, CDs, videos, DVDs, toys and games, electronics, kitchenware, computers, and more.
Category: Retailers > Amazon.com
www.amazon.com - 56k - Cached - More pages from this site
Sky and telescope online

Sky and telescope online Sky and telescope online This World Wide Web (WWW) site, a service of Sky Publishing Corporation, publishers of periodicals dealing with astronomy, gives access to articles written for their publications. Articles ...
www.skypub.com - More pages from this site
Find Business Credit Reports and Analysis Tools to Help Your Business

Access the D&B company database on millions of companies for your credit, marketing and purchasing needs.
Category: Market Information and Research > Dun & Bradstreet Corporation
www.dnb.com - More pages from this site
Boxes and Arrows: The Design behind the Design

September 29, 2004. The Overview...
Category: Web Page Design and Layout

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.boxesandarrows.com - More pages from this site
Reviews and free downloads at Download.com

Find the software you're looking for at Download.com, the most comprehensive source for free-to-try software downloads on the Web. Includes audio programs, utilities, Internet and desktop software, applications for developers, downloads for ...
Category: Software > Shareware

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.download.com - More pages from this site
globeandmail.com - Canada's best source for news continuously updated from The Globe and Mail

The most authoritiative news in Canada featuring articles from The Globe and Mail, breaking news coverage, national news, international news, sports, weather, Report on Business.
Category: Newspapers > Canada

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www.globeandmail.com - More pages from this site

Amazon.com

online retailer of books, CDs, videos, DVDs, toys and games, electronics, kitchenware, computers, and more.
Category: Retailers > Amazon.com
www.amazon.com - 56k - Cached - More pages from this site
A+ Math

A+ Math A+ Math This World Wide Web (WWW) site, designed by software engineers and an elementary school teacher, offers students grades K to 4 an interactive mathematical Web page with flashcards, homework help, and games. Flashcards include ...
Category: Mathematics > Pre-Algebra
www.aplusmath.com - More pages from this site
A&E Television

Good Will Hunting. Sunday 8pm/7C. Matt Damon plays a reluctant young math genius. Also stars Ben Affleck, Robin Williams, Minnie Driver.
www.aetv.com - 44k - Cached - More pages from this site
Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University is a land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant institution located in College Station, Texas
Category: Texas > College Station > Texas > College Station > Texas A&M University
www.tamu.edu - 21k - Cached - More pages from this site
A&M Records

Free music videos of today�s top artists online available for viewing and download from artists like, Sting, 2Pac, Bilal, Beck, Eminem, Hole, and more
Category: Music Labels > A&M Records
www.amrecords.com - 49k - Cached - More pages from this site
Yahoo!

provider of comprehensive online products and services to consumers and businesses worldwide.
Category: Internet Portals
www.yahoo.com - 42k - Cached - More pages from this site
A List Apart

Web design, content, and coding. Accessibility, CSS, XHTML, scripting, server side, front and back end. Designing with web standards.
Category: World Wide Web > Magazines

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.alistapart.com - More pages from this site
Dell Computer

Dell designs, builds, and customizes a broad range of computer products and services for consumer and professional use.
Category: Computer Systems Manufacturers
www.dell.com - More pages from this site
World Wide Web Consortium

W3C's nearly 400 member organizations lead the World Wide Web to its full potential. Founded by Tim Berners-Lee, the Web's inventor. The W3C Web site hosts specifications, guidelines, software and tools. Public participation is welcome. W3C ...
Category: WWW Organizations > World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

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www.w3.org - More pages from this site
ARRLWeb: ARRL Home Page

ARRLWeb is the home of the American Radio Relay League, the US national organization of Amateur Radio operators.
Category: American Radio Relay League

RSS: View as XML - Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]
www.arrl.org - More pages from this site

Well. Google certainly likes those government sites more than Yahoo.

The World Wide Web Consortium showed up several times for Yahoo, as did Amazon, but not once for Google.

Generally, Google returned several tens of million of sites more than Yahoo (though this is not listed above; you'll just have to trust me).

And why was The Onion the first "the" site for both Google and Yahoo?

According to trafficranking.com, theonion.com ranks in at 5,416, right between yourdailyjuice.com and todaystease.com.

It has had 4,998 unique visitors today.

However, it has 869,909 links, which places it in significantly higher company.

To me, at least, it still does not explain why it shows up first at Google, Yahoo and several others search engines.

For the record, trafficranking.com's top ten for today are (in ascending order) msn.com, officeoptimzer.com, passport.com, yahoo.com, passport.net, google.com, ebay.co.uk, microsoft.com, trafficmp.com and searchscout.com.

Tragically, hurie.blogspot.com is not a real website and hence cannot be listed, though if it were if would surely rank higher than some websites but lower than most.

Clearly, my experiment failed.

Oh, well.

"The World's Shortest Blog"

2004-10-04T16:59:00.000Z

Because this has been going around the Internet for awhile, I hesitate to give this its own post, so I made it a sort-of-post, outside of today's six posts.

It's corny, but worth a look.

Open Source Software

2004-10-04T15:59:00.000Z

Here's a nice listing of open source software for windows.

[via redferret]

Happy Anniversary!

2004-10-04T12:59:00.000Z

Today is Everything I Make's one month birth day/anniversary.

Not to get carried away,

But I've never attempted anything like this, and I am definitely a technophobe, so I figure getting this far at six posts a day is not bad.

There are several things, however, that have been bothering me about the site, and so I am in the middle of several minor changes, including the way the archives are presented.

I am also going to add some links to the sidebar.

I've created another blog with favorite websites on it, so that should be available soon in the links section.

The San Francisco 49ers

2004-10-04T03:59:00.000Z

It is pathetic how far the 49ers have fallen.

I realize that everyone says this, and it has been coming for several years now, but it is still rather stunning.

My father was a 49ers fan, so I grew up watching Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and Dwight Clark.

I mean, they could be one of the worst teams in sports history, right there with the 2003 Tigers and the 1990 Patriots and the Senators of the early 1990s.

They simply do not have the talent. It was sad watching an aging Marshall Faulk beat up the Julian Peterson and the 49ers defense. Tim Rattay is their quarterback, for God's sake.

Certainly, San Francisco could pull it together; they almost won their first two games.

But I would not be surprised if they went down as one of the worst teams in NFL history.

Thomas Friedman Is A Fucking Idiot

2004-10-04T00:59:00.000Z

I hate this.

In his column today, Thomas Friedman writes, "Being away has not changed my belief one iota in the importance of producing a decent outcome in Iraq, to help move the Arab-Muslim world off its steady slide toward increased authoritarianism, unemployment, overpopulation, suicidal terrorism and religious obscurantism. But my time off has clarified for me, even more, that this Bush team can't get us there, and may have so messed things up that no one can. Why? Because each time the Bush team had to choose between doing the right thing in the war on terrorism or siding with its political base and ideology, it chose its base and ideology. More troops or radically lower taxes? Lower taxes. Fire an evangelical Christian U.S. general who smears Islam in a speech while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army or not fire him so as not to anger the Christian right? Don't fire him. Apologize to the U.N. for not finding the W.M.D., and then make the case for why our allies should still join us in Iraq to establish a decent government there? Don't apologize - for anything - because Karl Rove says the "base" won't like it. Impose a "Patriot Tax" of 50 cents a gallon on gasoline to help pay for the war, shrink the deficit and reduce the amount of oil we consume so we send less money to Saudi Arabia? Never. Just tell Americans to go on guzzling. Fire the secretary of defense for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, to show the world how seriously we take this outrage - or do nothing? Do nothing. Firing Mr. Rumsfeld might upset conservatives. Listen to the C.I.A.? Only when it can confirm your ideology. When it disagrees - impugn it or ignore it.

What I resent so much is that some of us actually put our personal politics aside in thinking about this war and about why it is so important to produce a different Iraq. This administration never did. Mr. Kerry's own views on Iraq have been intensely political and for a long time not well thought through. But Mr. Kerry is a politician running for office. Mr. Bush is president, charged with protecting the national interest, and yet from the beginning he has run Iraq policy as an extension of his political campaign."

What naivety...

"Liberals" like Friedman and Kenneth Pollack and the editors of the New Republic who supported the war in spite of their "personal politics" were wishful dreamers.

The fact that they have had the audacity to express their dismay at how the Bush Administration has handled Iraq simply makes it worse.

I remember reading Pollack's The Threatening Storm and thinking, fine, maybe in an ideal world, if absolutely everything goes according the plan, maybe invading Iraq would be the right thing.

I didn't think so, personally, but I could intellectually see where they were coming from, and occasionally I agreed.

I mean, I certainly agree with Daniel Drezner more often that I do with John Kerry.

Anyway, my chief reason for opposing the way was precisely what Friedman is now complaining about.

Putting my ethical, moral, logical and intellectual issues aside, Bush had not done a single thing before invading Iraq that was not"an extension of his political campaign".

What in the world made Friedman think that Iraq, of all things, would be different?

If we couldn't do Afghanistan correctly, with the world supporting us, why the fuck would we be able to do Iraq?

Why would an Administration that had managed to politicize nearly every issue known to man keep politics out of its biggest pet project?

Protecting the national interest? More like promoting the National Interest.

He resents it.

Fucking idiots.

"This Is Sportscenter"

2004-10-03T21:59:00.000Z

ESPN has helpfully posted a collection of its "This Is Sportscenter" commercials.

They can be accessed here.

Unfortunately, the collection does not include several of the best commercials, including "Multicultural Sportscenter" and, my all-time favorite, "What the Anchors Are Really Saying at the End of the Show when They Shuffle Their Papers".

Good stuff.

Dealing with China's National Firewall

2004-10-03T18:59:00.000Z

Since 2002, Dynamic Internet Technology Inc. has been providing Internet users in China access to forbidden sites.

From the website:

"The Internet technologies develop fast. Many new technologies will cut down cost by half or more. We constantly develop and evaluate emerging technologies to ensure customers low cost and reliability.

Internet can be challenging and even hostile some times. Security is an issue for most Internet services, and email service providers have to fight spam all the time. On the other hand, over-tightened security can limit legitimate Internet users. This becomes a more important issue for users in countries with strong Internet censorship."

Learn more here.

Meet the KAZ

2004-10-03T15:59:00.000Z

I'm not really into cars, but this is definitely worth an exception.

The KAZ (Keio Advanced Zero-Emission Vehicle) is an eight-wheeled, Japanese-designed, Italian-built limousine. Sort of.

Entirely electric, it can go over 300 kph (in case you happen to be in Germany) and, because of the eight wheels, it handles like a sports car.

The wheels are drive train is computer-controlled, meaning that as you speed around curves you will not flip.

The KAZ does not have the regular combustion motor/transmission system; instead, it uses a reduction gear system, mechanical brake and wheel bearing housed around each driving wheel.

I don't know what's cooler, this or the Quark.

Turkey Makes Friends

2004-10-03T12:59:00.000Z

The TNR piece takes an interesting look at Turkey, which gets minimal, filtered coverage in the Western press. That's not to say that Cagaptay (of the Washington Institute) doesn't have definite agenda and bias.

In spite of this, it makes for interesting reading.

Eastern Heading

By Soner Cagaptay

These days, pretty much everything in Turkey seems to focus on the European Union. Leaving a friend's apartment in Istanbul on a sultry evening in August, I came across a street quarrel. Istanbulis park literally anywhere, including the sidewalks. A middle-aged man whose driveway had been blocked by an illegally parked car was in an animated fight with the driver, yelling at him as loudly as he could, "You think Turkey will enter the EU if you park your car like this?"

In Ankara and on the Continent, the EU is a constant topic as well. The Turkish government is carrying out significant economic and political reforms, trying to improve its human rights records to gain EU membership. Meanwhile, Brussels is about to decide on a timetable for Turkey's accession to the Union, and European publications are constantly debating whether Turkey should be admitted.

But under the surface, Turkey is also cultivating relationships with nations more worrisome to the United States and the EU. Turks used to look to the West for political and economic cues. Evening news programs in Turkey gave the weather forecast for Paris and Stockholm but not for Damascus, and the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs refrained from training diplomats in Arabic. But that has changed. Today Turkey has become Syria's best friend, and is drawing closer to Iran than at any time since the era of the shah.

As recently as 1999, Turkey and Syria came to the brink of war because of the latter's support for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish terrorist group battling the Ankara government. At the time, Ankara massed troops along the Syrian border, and popular Turkish dailies came out with headlines like, "We will say shalom when we greet the Israelis on the Golan Heights." In November 2002, however, a new government came to power in Ankara, led by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), a party with Islamist roots that now calls itself a conservative democratic movement. The AKP is determined to improve Turkey's relations with the Muslim Middle East.

Since then, Ankara and Damascus have become closer. The AKP has dramatically improved ties with Syria, which is surrounded by Israel, U.S. ally Jordan, and Iraq, through well-publicized bilateral visits--over thirty ministerial-level visits since 2002, including Bashar's January 2004 trip to Ankara, during which he and his wife were showered with media praise. The two nations have signed cooperation agreements in areas ranging from oil and gas to security affairs. As a result, bilateral trade volume, which stood at $241 million in 1999, jumped to $910 million in 2003.

With Tehran, the story is similar. Ankara still has some qualms about Tehran. Many in the AKP worry about Shiite Iran challenging a predominantly Sunni Turkey. The Turkish military is concerned with Iran's nuclear program, though one AKP politician told me, "Iran's nuclear bomb is only as much a threat to Turkey as Israel's weapon would be." Despite these qualms, in December 2002, the two countries signed a treaty of educational cooperation, paving the way for them to share curricula and exchange students. Trade between the two countries has boomed since the AKP rose to power, growing from $1.2 billion in 2002 to $2.3 billion for the first eight months of 2004 alone. In July, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Tehran to discuss deeper economic, political, and security ties, including a deal to buy Iranian natural gas, though no deal has yet been inked.

The AKP's efforts to improve ties with Syria and Iran have been backed by the Turkish press, whose business interests depend on good relations with the ruling party. Throughout Erdogan's trip, the Turkish media displayed enormous sympathy towards Tehran. They did not mention Iran's past support for the PKK until I raised the topic during a CNN-Turk interview. The day after my interview, Iran declared that it was adding the PKK to its list of terrorist organizations, a list "which does not exist," according to an Iranian Foreign Ministry official. Nevertheless, at the end of Erdogan's visit Turkey and Iran signed a security cooperation treaty stipulating, among other things, a "joint fight against terrorism."

Why have relations between Turkey and these countries changed so radically? The AKP's desire to woo Muslim states is one reason. AKP politician Ahmet Davutoglu, previously a professor at the International Islamic University in Malaysia, and now an advisor to both Prime Minister Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, argues that Turkey can remain powerful only if it utilizes the "strategic depth" of its neighborhood, developing better ties with those Muslim neighbors with whom it shares cultural affinity. The world is composed of cultural blocs, he writes, and Turkey falls into the "Muslim bloc." Close ties with Israel prevent Ankara from gaining the strategic depth it could otherwise possess through good relations with its Muslim neighbors. Hence, Turkey's future power depends on having good ties with the Muslim bloc, especially nearby Iran and Syria.

But there are other important factors, such as the Iraq war. The war has angered every significant political group in Turkey, from Islamists to leftists to nationalists. The most leftist Turks, harkening back to the 1970s, see the war as a neocolonial effort to achieve U.S. hegemony in the region, and Iran and Syria as a balance to that hegemony. The Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, a vocal proponent of socialism in the '70s and social democracy later, runs regular articles criticizing the U.S. campaign as an attempt to rule the Middle East.

The mainstream liberals, in line with the EU position, reject the war as illegitimate. An old college friend who teaches at a top liberal school in Istanbul told me that when he asked the students in his international law class to come up with term projects on breaches of international law, over 90 percent chose the Iraq war. At the end of my stay in Ankara, I visited Batikent, a pleasant, middle-class suburb of row houses and well-tended rose gardens. Batikent is the epitome of modern liberal Turkey: there are almost no mosques, and I expected to encounter little anti-Americanism there. Yet graffiti all over the neighborhood repeated the same message: "Murderer America, get out of our region."

The nationalists, for their part, are anxious over the U.S. alliance with the Iraqi Kurds, who have gained de facto independence, and worry that chaos in Iraq will seep over into Turkey. One cab driver, whose car was plastered with stickers of the patriotic Nationalist Action Party, told me, "The war is an American effort to establish a Kurdish state in northern Iraq." This is, after all, "what the Americans had been aspiring to do ever since the Gulf War," he added. Fear of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq and of chaos have helped convince the nationalists--who traditionally opposed closer ties with Arab nations--of the wisdom of improved links with Syria and Iran. As for the Islamists, they see the U.S. campaign as an abhorrent assault on a fellow Muslim nation, an assault that increases their sympathy for the Arab world. Every day during my stay in Turkey, Vakit, an Islamist daily with a diehard cadre of readers, ran at least one article calling the U.S. soldiers in Iraq "bloody murderers who kill Muslims."

Turkey's tilt towards the Middle East is not irreversible, however. The United States has to make sure that events in Iraq do not unfold in a manner that pushes Turkey further away. Over the past few years, Washington has failed to use the kind of diplomacy that worked for years in Turkey, such as visits by high-level American statesmen involving interaction with ordinary citizens, which Turks love. Washington cannot afford to let Iraq devolve further into chaos, a development that would alienate Ankara even more. If it doesn't, one day soon Turkish weather reports might ignore Stockholm and Washington altogether.

Tom DeLay's Scandal

2004-10-03T03:59:00.000Z

The House Ethics Committee finally got around to releasing its report on the whole Nick Smith/Medicare/bribery thing (or rather, the scandal that the media did not cover).

Basically, they didn't say anything original, at least not according to Slate's chatterbox.

Honestly, I was to lazy to actually read the 72 page report, although you can if you want by clicking here.

Full disclosure: I really dislike Tom DeLay. He may be my least favorite person in the United States. I don't believe in Hell, but if it does exist, he can burn there for the rest of time and I really wouldn't mind.

The House Ethics Committee finally released its report about allegations by Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., that the House leadership tried to win his support for the Medicare drug bill last November by offering a $100,000 bribe. (In the end, Smith voted no.) The big news is that Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, admitted that he offered to endorse Smith's son Brad, who was running for Congress at the time, in exchange for Smith's "yea" vote on the Medicare bill. According to the Ethics Committee—more precisely, its investigative subcommittee—this is a violation of House rules and warrants "public admonishment." But it may warrant a good deal more.

The Ethics Committee wasn't able to find anyone who would admit having mentioned to Smith that his vote was worth $100,000, and Smith (for reasons that are getting clearer) now contradicts his earlier statements and says no bribe—and certainly no $100,000—was ever offered. But DeLay's statement alone is grounds for indictment. United States Code, Title 18, Section 201, "Bribery of public officials and witnesses," states that a bribe can be "anything of value." There's an exception for horse-trading confined wholly to government business—you vote for my bill and I'll vote for yours—because that's constitutionally protected. But endorsing a candidate for office is not government business. There are no House committees that vote on DeLay's endorsements, or Cabinet secretaries who issue them as regulations. DeLay doesn't even have to clear them with the House speaker (who at any rate seems to take orders from DeLay, not the other way around). When DeLay endorses someone, he's speaking for himself and his party.

Would an endorsement by DeLay have been "of value" to Smith? You bet, and not simply because DeLay is a nationally recognized figure in the Republican Party. DeLay is well known to have access to enormous quantities of corporate cash (not all of it necessarily obtained legally). In the current election cycle, his PAC, Americans for a Republican Majority, has given out $775, 278. None of the other so-called "leadership PACs" controlled by members of Congress come close to spending this kind of money. A DeLay endorsement means big bucks. Smith acknowledged to the Ethics Committee this inescapable logical connection (thereby edging toward recanting his recantation) by admitting "he would have associated the offer of an endorsement with willingness to provide financial assistance in the form of contributions to his son's campaign." Well, duh.

Smith got a "public admonishment," too. The stated reason is that his initial accusations of bribery, which he later retracted, eroded "public confidence in the integrity of this lawmaking institution," and therefore violated a House rule requiring members to "conduct themselves at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House." This lays down the Ethics Committee's official line, which is that Smith is basically a nut who spouted untrue accusations and later came to regret them. Indeed, the report suggests that if Smith had not at first "declined to cooperate fully" with the investigation, the Ethics Committee could have avoided "a costly and time-consuming investigation." (Translation: "If you'd been a little more slick, we would have had a much easier time burying this whole thing.")

But "Smith is a nut" is not the most plausible interpretation of the facts painstakingly laid out in the report. When Smith retracted his bribery accusation, I assumed that was because the House leadership was holding Brad's congressional candidacy hostage. (Brad ended up losing the primary.) But it's just as likely that DeLay or an aide let Smith know that if Smith continued leveling the accusation, someone in the House majority leader's office just might say that Smith himself first suggested the bribe.

It may even be true that it happened that way. It is, at any rate, DeLay's version of the story. When DeLay marched over to Smith on the night of the vote—for the unmistakable purpose of getting Smith to support the Medicare bill—it was Smith, DeLay maintained, who first brought up the subject of Brad's congressional campaign. DeLay said he thought Smith was "fishing to see what I would say." Smith had collared DeLay before about endorsing and funding Brad's campaign, DeLay said. DeLay gave in and offered to endorse Brad, but, he claims, Smith answered, " 'That's not good enough,' something like that. And then he goes off … into a diatribe about how bad this bill is." This is all quite inconsistent with Smith's account. I should note that three DeLay aides told the Ethics committee that before the vote they had a discussion about offering DeLay's endorsement in exchange for Smith's vote. (They differ on whether DeLay was present.) Since DeLay recalls making his offer to Smith during the vote (and since review of a C-Span tape supports that recollection), DeLay's staff would have talked about the swap before DeLay's talk with Smith. This makes it harder to believe DeLay's claim that it was Smith, not he, who initiated the offer.

One thread dangles conspicuously in the Ethics Committee report. Although they established pretty clearly that all of Smith's various explanations for how he came to blurt out the $100,000 figure were obvious lies, the investigators were never able to find out the true explanation. Who did whisper "$100,000" in Smith's ear? The report is full of plausible suspects, including DeLay himself, but it lacks any evidence on this crucial question. You get the feeling the authors would prefer to forget this mystery ever existed.

Good Websites

2004-10-02T21:59:00.000Z

KartOO is a interesting concept for a search engine.

In its words: "KartOO is a metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. When you click on OK, KartOO launches the query to a set of search engines, gathers the results, compiles thema nd represents them in a series of interactive maps through a proprietary algorithm."

Sure.

Mount St. Helens, Again

2004-10-02T18:59:00.000Z

Scientists are predicting a more severe eruption of Mount St. Helens, a day after it exploded for the first time in 18 years.

Today's announcement comes on the heels of increased earthquakes and a small steam emission at 12:15 PT.

The government raised its advisory to Level 3, the equilvalent of a "code red".

Geologists had initially predicted only minor Level 1 activity.

Officials said that nearby towns - 20 to 30 miles away - were not in danger.

To view Mount St. Helens, click here.

"Why Make Leno a Lame Duck?"

2004-10-02T15:59:00.000Z

According to the New York Times, "NBC made more than $200 million in profit on Mr. Leno's and Mr. O'Brien's shows this past year, on revenues of $320 million, according to one NBC late-night executive. That is more profit than either ABC or Fox made as an entire network. (CBS made close to $100 million on Mr. Letterman's show on revenue of close to $180 million, according to a CBS late-night executive.)"

Wow.

News Analysis: Why Make Leno a Lame Duck?

By Bill Carter

After NBC's surprise announcement Monday of the unusual deal that secured Conan O'Brien as the next host of the "Tonight" show at the end of a five-year transition period, the question facing the network's executives yesterday was one the current host, Jay Leno, once memorably asked:

What were you thinking?

Unlike Hugh Grant, the actor who answered that question on Mr. Leno's show in 1995 in his first television appearance after being arrested with a prostitute, NBC's executives, along with everyone else involved in the negotiations with the two stars, were maintaining an official silence yesterday.

They preferred to let Mr. Leno's comments on his show Monday night, and Mr. O'Brien's on his show last night, speak for everyone. But neither man addressed the question that was the talk of the television industry yesterday: Why would NBC set up such an extended transition in a business, network television, that is unsure what condition it will be in next season, never mind five years down the road?

The answer: because protecting the late-night franchise is more important than ever. Indeed, at a time when most of the network television audience continues to erode, late-night programs remain not just stable, but actually capable of growth.

Five years ago, the two biggest late-night entertainment franchises on the networks, "Tonight" with Mr. Leno on NBC and "Late Show With David Letterman" on CBS, attracted a combined nightly average of 9.8 million viewers. Last year, the two shows actually did better, averaging just over 10 million viewers combined. (Notably, Mr. O'Brien's 12:35 p.m. show, "Late Night," was also up from five years ago, to 2.5 million viewers from 2.3 million.)

Almost no other area of network television has been adding viewers, with the occasional exception of morning television, where on-air stars are also highly prized. In contrast, the four big networks - NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox - had a combined average of 48.1 million viewers in prime time five seasons ago, a figure that fell to 42.8 million last season.

The finances tell a similar story. NBC made more than $200 million in profit on Mr. Leno's and Mr. O'Brien's shows this past year, on revenues of $320 million, according to one NBC late-night executive. That is more profit than either ABC or Fox made as an entire network. (CBS made close to $100 million on Mr. Letterman's show on revenue of close to $180 million, according to a CBS late-night executive.)

While it may seem risky for NBC to set up so long a transition - even a re-elected president is a lame duck for only four years - in late night, the move makes some sense.

By doing so, Jeff Zucker, the president of the NBC Universal Television Group who spearheaded the negotiations, could secure two known stars and NBC's late-night future for most of the rest of this decade. His problem was that Mr. Leno had little reason to think about stepping down, having dominated the late-night ratings since 1995.

But the threat of losing Mr. O'Brien was real. "The known quantities in late night are so valuable, because with all the fragmentation in the rest of television, it's so hard for people to become known quantities," said Rob Burnett, the executive producer of Mr. Letterman's program.

The Fox network chased Mr. O'Brien four years ago, suggesting at one point a salary of $25 million a year. (He makes about $8 million at NBC. Mr. Leno makes an estimated $25 million; Mr. Letterman makes $31 million).

More recently, ABC, which made a similar run at Mr. Letterman three years ago, discreetly let Mr. O'Brien's associates know that it could be interested in talking to him when he was free to listen to other offers in the last year of his contract, beginning next January. Had Mr. O'Brien become available, ABC would almost certainly have dropped or pushed back its current late-night lineup, "Nightline" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

(One name often mentioned along with Mr. O'Brien's as a potential 11:35 late-night star is Jon Stewart, the host of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central. But Mr. Stewart, who was passed over for Mr. Kimmel two years ago for the 12:05 a.m. time slot, is locked into a four-year contract.)

Mr. O'Brien had made plain his conviction that he could not remain a host of the 12:35 show much longer, telling The New York Times earlier this year: "I think it's natural to at some point want to move earlier. I think I've proved I can do a show that I don't think has to exist at 12:30."

He had already surpassed Mr. Letterman's 11-year tenure at "Late Night." When Mr. Zucker signed Mr. Leno in March to a contract extension through 2009, some of Mr. O'Brien's representatives expressed frustration that he would not get a shot at "Tonight," and began discussing more openly the possibility of jumping to ABC.

NBC had suffered through a similar set of events once before. That was in 1993, after the network gave "Tonight" to Mr. Leno and Mr. Letterman then jumped from the "Late Night" spot to CBS, where he established the first viable challenge to what had been a half-century of late-night dominance by NBC.

NBC's top management, led now as then by Bob Wright, did not want to see a replay.

According to a friend at NBC, neither did Mr. Leno, who was in the middle of the nastiness surrounding Mr. Letterman's departure. Referring to his fractured relationship with Mr. Letterman, Mr. Leno said on his show Monday night: "A lot of good friendships were permanently damaged. Quite frankly, I don't want to see anybody go through that again."

The elements came together first in Mr. O'Brien's decision to put off a chance to move up to an 11:35 slot for about three years - he could have probably first appeared on ABC in September 2006 - and then in Mr. Leno's decision to allow NBC to take Mr. O'Brien off the market.

The decisions only underscored the continuing value of the "Tonight" prize, still the best job in late-night television.

People Are Funny

2004-10-02T12:59:00.000Z

Isn't it amazing that the 9/11 Commission Report is still a bestseller, when you can get it for free online?

It is similar to Angels & Demons becoming a bestseller in hardcover after it had been out for years as a mass market.

Then again, the hardcover Angels & Demons cost about 12 dollars, so....

Good Websites

2004-10-02T03:59:00.000Z

Here's a cool zip code website.

[via Anil Dash]

The AquaDom Aquarium

2004-10-02T00:59:00.000Z

Next time you are in Berlin,

Be sure to check out the Cityquartier DomAquaree, "a multi-use development, including a world-renowned four star hotel, retail, recreation, liviving and office space".

It also includes the world's largest cyclinder aquarium, which stands in the center of the hotel complex, at 52 feet in depth by 36 feet in diameter.

The Parliament is also pretty nice.

American Journalist In Baghdad

2004-10-01T21:59:00.000Z

Here is an email from the Wall Street Journal's Farnaz Fassihi to a group of friends.

9/29/2004 2:58:10 PM

From: Farnaz Fassihi
Subject: From Baghdad

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under
virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.

It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it April
when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when
Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began
spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a
foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.

Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the
country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of
landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there
were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods.

The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.

I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.

America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard
units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being
murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.

As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate that
almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the $18
billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.

Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotage
and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?

Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for
insecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.

I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad.

Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about
elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost."

One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.

The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months
while half of the country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the hands of the
government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.

I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in
the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree
elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"

-Farnaz

[via poynter.org]

Google's Latest "Rival"

2004-10-01T18:59:00.000Z

Check out Clusty.com, the latest search engine to rival Google. Launch by Vivisimo, Clusty is based on Yahoo's Overturn engine.

It features results listed one at a time, but also divides results into tabs, shown on the left side of the page.

For example, a search for "Roosevelt" gives me the top 243 of several million pages, but also breaks them down in "Theodore Roosevelt (88)", "Franklin (41)", "Eleanor Roosevelt (36)", and so forth.

It's not a bad service, but I still like Google. All the newer search engines sort the information, and claim to address "information overload". But the fact remains that Google's results are still better.

The introduction of Clusty comes on the heels of a9.com, profiled on this blog several weeks ago.

Perhaps the most stunning part of the article below: In the quarter ending in June, Google made $962 million. In the quarter.

No wonder Microsoft and Yahoo are trying to get into the market.

New Company Starts Up a Challenge to Google

By John Markoff

Google executives have long conceded that one of their great fears is to be overtaken by a more advanced Internet search technology. Vivisimo, a company founded by three former Carnegie Mellon University computer scientists, is hoping to prove that Google's worries are well founded.

Four-year-old Vivisimo plans to start Clusty, a free, consumer search service based on results from Yahoo's Overture engine, Thursday.

Vivisimo already offers a search service for corporate customers, which clusters results into categories to make them easier to sort through. Search "swift boat," for example, and Vivisimo returns 149 results - listing them one by one, and also as a table of categories, like "Swift Boat Veterans," "John Kerry" and "Patrol Craft Fast" on the left-hand side of the Web page.

The new Clusty service for consumers, which will be free and supported by advertising revenue, uses a similar organizational structure. But it also presents a series of tabs enabling the user to see results from sources besides the general Web, including shopping information, yellow pages, news, blogs, and images.

Vivisimo, which is privately held and is profitable, according to its executives, has been selling its clustering technology to corporations for research by their employees. Now Vivisimo is making an effort to compete more broadly by attracting consumers to its Web site, clusty.com.

The service is meant to address the confusion that can be created when search engines return huge lists. Clustering is also intended to help users find related material they may overlook when they employ services that utilize page ranking methods. Such methods employ a variety of software algorithms to rank Web pages by their perceived relevance to a query.

Many search experts say that clustering offers a better way of looking at information than Google's page ranking system.

"As databases get larger, trying to pull the proverbial needle out of the haystack gets tougher and tougher," said Gary Price, a librarian who is also the news editor at SearchEngineWatch, a Web site that covers the industry. "Here, you're getting a bit of extra help."

Vivisimo's co-founder and chief executive, Raul Valdes-Perez, was a protégé of Herbert A. Simon, a Nobel laureate who was a pioneer in artificial intelligence research. Before co-founding Vivisimo, Mr. Valdes-Perez was a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University. He professes that the way to deal with information overload is with information "overlook" - techniques that strip away extraneous information.

Clusty would generate money for Vivisimo by placing several search-related advertisements from Overture on the right-hand side of each page. Revenue from the ads would be shared by Vivisimo and Overture.

Unlike many start-ups, which are launched with venture capital financing, Vivisimo was created with help from a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research program, which is intended to stimulate innovation by new companies.

Vivisimo is not the first to introduce clustering for Web surfers. Northern Light, a search engine company founded in 1996, had offered a consumer service featuring what it called "custom search folders." But that company is now focused on corporate applications.

Google is also using clustering technology, but in a more limited fashion: its news page provides links to topics that appear on news sites.

Microsoft and Yahoo have been drawn into the search business in part because of Google's profitability and rapidly growing revenue - $962 million for the quarter that ended in June, up from $389 million in the previous quarter.

The introduction of Clusty comes two weeks after A9, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, introduced a service focused on organizing information retrieved during various Web searches.

"Search will look more like the magazine business than the soda market," said Oren Etzioni, a computer scientist at University of Washington and an advisory board member of Vivisimo. He predicts that users might select from a variety of services, rather than from a few dominant players.

"The competition has shifted from crawling the Web and returning an answer quickly," Mr. Etzioni said, "to adding value to the information that has been retrieved."

A Google spokesman declined to comment on the service.

Vivisimo's executives are betting that there is an audience for providing a different view of Web search results.

"Google is excellent at crawling as much of the Web as they can; we don't do that," said Mr. Valdes-Perez. Instead, Vivisimo tackles the question, "How do you solve the problem of information overload?"

Stuff to Buy: New Yorker Cartoons

2004-10-01T15:59:00.000Z

Since 1925, the New Yorker has published over 68,000 cartoons.

Now, 2,004 cartoons are being published in a new book, The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker.

Additionally, all 68,647 New Yorker cartoons are available on two CDs that come with the book.

Listed at 60 dollars, the book is available for $40.80 at Amazon and $42 at BN.

Here's a New York Times article chronicling the story behind the book.

Toonology: Scientists Try to Find Out What's So Funny About Humor

By Glenn Collins

So this group of scientists is setting out to study humor, and they wire up their research subjects and - hang on. Is this a New Yorker cartoon?

Absolutely. But now it is The New Yorker cartoon itself that will become the object of scientific study. As in: How do people perceive that specific things are funny? What happens when they laugh? How does humor evolve? And just why are people born with a gift for laughter and a sense that the world is, er, mad?

These and many other not obviously risible mysteries will be addressed by researchers at the University of Michigan as they examine a vast, ready-made database of mirth: virtually every cartoon published by the magazine since it began on Feb. 1, 1925.

The three-year interdisciplinary experimental project is called Humor at Michigan, in which wit will be studied from psychological, medical, anthropological, cultural, historical and other points of view.

"We need to know a whole lot more about humor," said the project's organizer, Charles R. Eisendrath, director of the Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the university. "We hope to learn why we think things are funny, and whether it matters. And if the joke is on us, that's fine."

Actually, the joke could be on everyone: the cartoon database is available not only to researchers but, for the first time, to the general public. It resides on two compact discs included in "The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker," a 656-page book being published next Tuesday by Black Dog & Leventhal ($60). The book will include 2,500 cartoons, but the discs hold all 68,647 cartoons published up to the magazine's 79th anniversary last February.

"These cartoons nicely match the kinds of empirical methods we can employ," said Dr. Richard L. Lewis, associate professor of psychology and linguistics at the university. He explains that cartoons-as-specimens are relatively uniform; most consist of a single-panel black-and-white illustration with a short-sentence caption.

"The fruit fly is used in decoding the mysteries of the genome," said Robert Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker and editor of the new anthology, "because the chromosomes are not complicated, and because its short life cycle makes it ideal for following hereditary changes. Well, the ideas in cartoons are like that: easily visible. And the ideas that prompted them have an easily observable life cycle."

Dr. Lewis is a cognitive psychologist who studies psycholinguistics, the mental processes involved in language comprehension. In previous studies he has tracked research subjects' eyeball movements as they read texts at a rate of 300 or 400 milliseconds per word.

Now this technique will confront the cartoon. "There is an incredible amount of cognitive machinery involved in understanding a cartoon, and one interesting thing about humor is that you get it or you don't after two or three seconds or so," Dr. Lewis said. During one planned experiment, test viewers will eyeball cartoon images as well as captions, "and every four milliseconds we'll get a readout of where people are looking." Beyond an understanding of comprehension itself, medical studies, planned to begin next year, may explore the relation of laughter to serotonin levels, or test for links to the immune system.

Researchers will also be looking for physiological markers that could be humor signatures. Dr. Lewis said there was some evidence to suggest that eye-pupil dilation "might correlate with the rating of cartoons for wit" (the larger the pupil, the funnier the cartoon). Beyond this, "if we can map certain processes of humor perception onto brain regions," he said, "we could use functional magnetic resonance imaging tests to depict blood flow in the brain on a second-by-second basis, possibly revealing other signature effects."

The investigators' working hypothesis "is that humor is evolutionary, an adaptive response," said Dr. Richard Gonzalez, chairman of the university's psychology department. "But it could have developed as a function of our brain size, or something else; we don't really know."

Although thinkers from Plato to Hobbes and Freud to Wittgenstein have indulged in the grim sport of humor hypothesis, "the kinds of theories we have about humor are so rudimentary as to be pathetic," said Dr. Daniel Herwitz, director of the university's Institute for the Humanities. There is some consensus that humor is a complex phenomenon subsuming external social context, interior emotional response and the human capabilities of perception, memory and judgment. "But these elements are part of most social and linguistic transactions," he said, "and much of that just isn't funny."

To Mr. Mankoff, who qualifies as something of an expert, "the core of all humor, the reason for it all, is unhappiness," he said, though he added that he spent a mostly enjoyable year editing the cartoon database for the new anthology. He describes his role in the research project as "a stimulator and gadfly," explaining that the academic collaboration started after he began lecturing at the university in 2002. He will spend a year as a varsity fellow during the research project.

Mr. Mankoff, 60, is a former Skinnerian Ph.D. candidate in experimental psychology at Queens College in the 1970's. ("I quit when my experimental animal died," he said of a pigeon with a number but not a name. "I took it as an omen and became a cartoonist.") He began selling his work to The New Yorker in 1977, became a contract cartoonist in 1981 and the editor in 1997.

Mr. Mankoff said it would be possible to study the evolution of comic forms through cartoon elements.

For example, Dr. Gonzalez, the Michigan psychologist, said the anthology could provide a window into sexual stereotyping and how it had changed over time. Before sexual harassment was seen as a serious offense, the "geezer chasing maiden" cartoon was a staple. So were women wielding rolling pins like baseball bats.

New Yorker cartoons are organized by decades in the book, and the database can be used to track such comic evolutions as the one that saw Father Time mutate in the late 1960's into the Grim Reaper - who, in turn, evolved from a menacer in a land of pestilence into a scold in a consumerist paradise. ("Relax," says the modern Reaper to a worried woman, "I've come for your toaster.")

But Mr. Mankoff says it is possible to organize cartoons not just chronologically but taxonomically, in relation to four vectors: caption, image and two values he terms "real" and "unreal."

"Most gags consist of an unreal image with a rather ordinary caption," he said, citing a cartoon that shows a party guest speaking to a desperate woman on a window ledge, referring to a man on the same ledge around the corner. The guest says, cheerfully, "There's someone I'd like you to meet." Or, Mr. Mankoff went on, they might couple a commonplace image (married couple) with an outlandish caption ("I'm sorry, dear. I wasn't listening. Could you repeat what you've said since we've been married?").

His two other categories are "surreal" and "slice of life." The first applies when both caption and image are unusual (crocodiles talking about eating their young); slice of life applies when neither caption nor image is unusual, just funny.

The Michigan levity project is to get $100,000 in financing from the university's Institute for the Humanities, the psychology department, the Depression Center of the medical school and the university's Rackham Graduate School. After that money runs out, it may have to turn to outside sources. Dr. Gonzalez was asked if he thought the project would be taken seriously. "I hope that we could do work that would not be easy to mock," he replied.

And Mr. Eisendrath noted that "depression is a major health problem in the United States," adding, "So anyone who questions the value of a study of humor literally needs his head examined."

There is always, of course, the Heisenbergian concern that the more humor is studied, the more elusive it will become, or as Dr. Herwitz put it: "Humor is like Groucho Marx. It refuses to join any club that would have it as a member."

Mr. Mankoff preferred to paraphrase E. B. White, who said dissecting humor was like dissecting a frog: nobody is much interested, and the frog dies.

"I come here not to bury the cartoon," Mr. Mankoff said of the project, "but to praise it."

Vlad for MVP

2004-10-01T12:59:00.000Z

Up until the last week I had been a staunch supporter of Gary Sheffield for the AL MVP.

But in the last week Vladimir Guerrero has grabbed it away.

Sheffield has been great (.291 BA, .395 OBP, .932 OPS, 36 home runs, 31 of them since June 1st) while playing for most of the season through bursitis in his left shoulder.

But while the Yankee hitters have struggled for much of the season, Jeter, Rodriguez, Matsui, Posada and company have still been in the lineup around Sheffield.

His proponents point to his many timely hits (I like Page 2's Bill Simmons: "I'm not kidding about this -- in my lifetime, the Yankees have NEVER had a more terrifying hitter, even with that wispy mustache that makes him look like a sax player from the 1940s. Gary Sheffield puts the fear of God into me."). But I'm not sure that he is even the Yankees' MVP.

Who has been the most consistent hitter this season? A compelling case can be made for Hideki Matsui.

And what about Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera? Imagine where the Yankees would be without them.

As for David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, they both are having superb seasons. Honestly, though, I think that the fact that they are teammates cancels them out.

I know, it's unfair, but MVP balloting is extremely subjective. I mean, clearly Pedro should have won in 1999.

If you take one of them off of the Red Sox, don't you think the Sox still make the postseason? It is kind of an absurd argument, and I'm not particularly serious, but on some level, isn't Theo Epstein the Red Sox's most valuable...person.

And I hate to admit it, but the Unfrozen-Caveman-Lawyer is having a really good year.

Meanwhile, the case for Vlad...

With his team battling the A's for the AL West title (and Jose Guillen suspended), Vlad has batted .533 (.600 OBP) with six home runs in his last eight games to lead the Angels into a tie with the A's.

For the season, he's batting .338 (3rd in the AL), with a .392 OBP (10th), 38 home runs (3rd), 124 RBI (4th), 123 runs (1st), .990 OPS (3rd)... The list goes on and on.

He has only struck out 74 times, which is amazing, considering his approach at the plate.

Most impressively, he has done all this with the Angels decimated by injuries.

Angels who have been on the DL this season:

Darin Erstad
Troy Glaus
Tim Salmon (2)
Garret Anderson
Jeff Davanon
Shane Halter
Troy Percival
Jerrod Washburn
Adam Kennedy
Robb Quinlan
Bengie Molina (2)
Bobby Jenks
Aaron Sele
Raul Mondesi (doesn't really count)

And their pitching has adequate, but certainly not spectacular.

In the middle of all of this is Vladimir Guerrero, the clear choice for the American League MVP.

Postscript: The "argument" over the AL Cy Young is absurd.

Yes, Curt Schilling is having a great season.

Yes, I live in New England.

Clearly, Johan Santana has been the best pitcher in the American League. It is not even worth discussing. His stats are so much better. Case closed.

Singapore: A Piece of "Snot"

2004-10-01T03:59:00.000Z

When Taiwan announced that it would seek to acquire missiles to counter China, Singapore's foregin minister accused Taiwan of pursuing a dangerous course and of upsetting regional stability.

Taiwan's foreign minister responded thusly: "Even Singapore, a country the size of a piece of snot, can swagger around to criticise Taiwan at the United Nations".

Yeah. That's the way to make friends.

Rumor has it that Singapore's critical comments are part of newly elected Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's plan to become better friends with China.

Clearly, the new Prime Minister is no fool.

The New and Improved Radical Republicans

2004-09-30T21:59:00.001Z

Perhaps my favorite example of the Bush Administration "shifting course" has been their attitudes toward the legal aspects of the war on terror.

After insisting for years that Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen captured in Afghanistan with the Taliban, could not meet with a lawyer because it might compromise national security, this week the government announced that it would strip Hamdi of his citizenship and release him in Saudi Arabia.

Any time you are a Republican and you get whupped on by Antonin Scalia ("the very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive"), you know it is not a good thing.

Whenever I get really angry at Bush, I have to remember that he is not really a conservative, at least not in the Reagan sense.

As much as I dislike Reagan, clearly tens of millions of Americans worship the man, and I have to acknowledge this.

Bush, on the other hand, is a radical. While tens of millions of people will vote for him (and worship his image), they do not all believe what he believes; they merely think they do.

This does not really change anything; it simply means that some day, history will look back and judge George W. Bush as the most destructive President in modern American history. On some sick level, this is comforting.

While I do not like Reagan, the country survived his two terms relatively intact.

I am not sure the same may be said when Bush is done.

Prepare for the Debate, Part Two

2004-09-30T21:59:00.000Z

As promised, CBS's David Paul Kuhn lists John Kerry's Top Ten Flip-Flops.

Senate's Role In Wars With Iraq

Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in January 1991, Kerry broke with the majority of senators and voted against authorizing the first Gulf War. He said on the Senate floor, “It is a vote about war because whether or not the president exercises his power, we will have no further say after this vote.”

Kerry thus voted against war after Iraq took aggressive military action. He said a vote in favor of military action was tantamount to giving Congress “no further say” on the war.

In October 2002, he supported the current war in Iraq, despite the fact that Iraq took no aggressive action against its neighbors.

In announcing his candidacy for president, in September 2003, he said his October 2002 vote was simply “to threaten” the use of force, apparently backtracking from his belief in 1991 that such a vote would grant the president an open-ended ticket to wage war.

If I Knew Then What I Know Now…

“We should not have gone to war knowing the information that we know today," Kerry said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” "Knowing there was no imminent threat to America, knowing there were no weapons of mass destruction, knowing there was no connection of Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda, I would not have gone to war. That's plain and simple."

But on Aug. 9, 2004, when asked if he would still have gone to war knowing Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction, Kerry said: “Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have.” Speaking to reporters at the edge of the Grand Canyon, he added: “[Although] I would have done this very differently from the way President Bush has."

The Kerry campaign says voting to authorize the war in Iraq is different from deciding diplomacy has failed and waging war. But Kerry’s nuanced position has contradicted itself on whether it was right or wrong to wage the war.

In May 2003, at the first Democratic primary debate, John Kerry said his vote authorizing the president to use force was the “right decision” though he would have “preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity.”

But then in January 2004, Kerry began to run as anti-war candidate, saying, "I don't believe the president took us to war as he should have."

The $87 Billion Vote

In September 2003, Kerry implied that voting against wartime funding bills was equivalent to abandoning the troops.

"I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running,” he said.

Then, in October 2003, a year after voting to support the use of force in Iraq, Kerry voted against an $87 billion supplemental funding bill for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He did support an alternative bill that funded the $87 billion by cutting some of President Bush’s tax cuts.

But when it was apparent the alternative bill would not pass, he decided to go on record as not supporting the legislation to fund soldiers.

Kerry complicated matters with his now infamous words, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

On Wednesday, he acknowledged that his explanation of his Iraq war votes was "one of those inarticulate moments."

The Israeli Security Fence

In October 2003, Kerry said Israel’s unilateral construction of a security fence was “a barrier to peace.”

“I know how disheartened Palestinians are by the decision to build the barrier off the Green Line," he told the Arab American Institute National Leadership Conference. “We don't need another barrier to peace. Provocative and counterproductive measures only harm Israelis.”

But less than a year later, in February 2004, he reversed himself, calling the fence "a legitimate act of self-defense," and saying "President Bush is rightly discussing with Israel the exact route of the fence to minimize the hardship it causes innocent Palestinians.”

Patriot Act

Kerry joined with 97 other senators and voted for the Patriot Act in October 2001. Campaigning in New Hampshire in June 2003, he defended his vote, saying, “it has to do with things that really were quite necessary in the wake of what happened on Sept. 11.”

But last December in Iowa, Kerry advocated “replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time.”

Death Penalty for Terrorists

In 1996, then- Massachusetts Gov. William Weld asked Kerry, a longtime opponent of capital punishment, whether the death penalty should be applied to terrorists. Kerry replied that the idea amounted to a “terrorist protection policy.”

He said then that such a policy would discourage other nations from extraditing suspects because many U.S. allies preclude extradition to countries that impose the death penalty.

Kerry now favors the death penalty for terrorists, though extradition remains a problem.

Kerry still opposes the death penalty in general, but says if elected he would not interfere with state executions.

Releasing the Strategic Petroleum Reserves

In 2000, Kerry called the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “not relevant” to solving the problem with high fuel prices.

But in recent months, Kerry has pressured President Bush to start pumping oil into the government's emergency reserves. Kerry has called for the release of some of the reserves, as well.

In a switch from his earlier position, Kerry now argues that a sizable release would lessen U.S. demand and thereby fuel lower prices.

Affirmative Action

Though he has long supported affirmative action, in a speech at Yale University in 1992, Kerry called the program "inherently limited and divisive," and said it had "kept America thinking in racial terms." He added that it was failing those most in need of assistance: African-Americans.

At the height of the Democratic primary race in January, Kerry reiterated his support for affirmative action. Kerry’s critics question how he can support a program that he once called “divisive.” Kerry says he was speaking about racial quotas, which he opposes.

Trade

Kerry backed trade pacts with Chile, Singapore and Africa. In 2000, he voted to grant China most-favored-nation trading status.

Having supported the major trade deals of the last decade – including the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – Kerry was heavily critical of U.S. trade policy during the Democratic primaries.

As the primary race heated up against now vice-presidential nominee John Edwards, who criticized Kerry for supporting NAFTA, Kerry received the prized endorsement of the AFL-CIO by insisting he will insure “workers rights” in trade agreements. Kerry also blamed trade for creating "a race to the bottom" among poverty-stricken nations.

No Child Left Behind

Kerry voted for President Bush's "No Child Left Behind Act” but now campaigns against it. He says Mr. Bush failed to adequately fund the legislation by not linking student-testing requirements with school funding.

Though the legislation requires rigorous testing in the states, Kerry said in August 2004 that the new federal testing mandates were “punitive.”

Prepare for the Debate

2004-09-30T18:59:00.000Z

CBS's Chief Political Writer David Paul Kuhn lists Bush's Top Ten Flip-Flops. Kerry's Top Ten will follow later this afternoon.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Announcing the invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, Mr. Bush said, “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”

Two months into the war, on May 29, 2003, Mr. Bush said weapons of mass destruction had been found.

“We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories,” Mr. Bush told Polish television. “For those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."

On Sept. 9, 2004, in Pennsylvania, Mr. Bush said: “I recognize we didn't find the stockpiles [of weapons] we all thought were there.”

Nation Building and the War in Iraq

During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush argued against nation building and foreign military entanglements. In the second presidential debate, he said: "I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.'"

The United States is currently involved in nation building in Iraq on a scale unseen since the years immediately following World War II.

During the 2000 election, Mr. Bush called for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from the NATO peacekeeping mission in the Balkans. His administration now cites such missions as an example of how America must "stay the course."

Iraq and the Sept. 11 Attacks

In a press conference in September 2002, six months before the invasion of Iraq, President Bush said, “you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror... they're both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.”

In September of 2004, Mr. Bush said: “We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September 11th." Though he added that “there's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties,” the statement seemingly belied earlier assertions that Saddam and al Qaeda were “equally bad.”

The Sept. 11 commission found there was no evidence Saddam was linked to the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

The Sept. 11 Commission

President Bush initially opposed the creation of an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks. In May 2002, he said, “Since it deals with such sensitive information, in my judgment, it's best for the ongoing war against terror that the investigation be done in the intelligence committee.”

Bowing to pressure from victims' families, Mr. Bush reversed his position. The following September, he backed an independent investigation.

Free Trade

During the 2000 presidential election, Mr. Bush championed free trade. Then, eyeing campaign concerns that allowed him to win West Virginia, he imposed 30 percent tariffs on foreign steel products from Europe and other nations in March 2002.

Twenty-one months later, Mr. Bush changed his mind and rescinded the steel tariffs. Choosing to stand on social issues instead of tariffs in steel country – Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia – the Bush campaign decided it could afford to upset the steel industry rather than further estrange old alliances.

Homeland Security Department

President Bush initially opposed creating a new Department of Homeland Security. He wanted Tom Ridge, now the secretary of Homeland Security, to remain an adviser.

Mr. Bush reversed himself and backed the largest expansion of the federal government since the creation of the Defense Department in 1949.

Same-Sex Marriage

During the 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush said he was against federal intervention regarding the issue of same-sex marriage. In an interview with CNN's Larry King, he said, states "can do what they want to do" on the issue. Vice President Cheney took the same stance.

Four year later, this past February, Mr. Bush announced his support for an amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as being exclusively between men and women. The amendment would forbid states from doing "what they want to do" on same-sex marriage.

Citing recent decisions by “activist judges” in states like Massachusetts, Mr. Bush defended his reversal. Critics point out that well before the 2000 presidential race, a judge in Hawaii ruled in December 1996 that there was no compelling reason for withholding marriage from same-sex couples.

Winning the War on Terror

"I don't think you can win it," Mr. Bush said of the war on terror in August. In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, he said, “I think you can create conditions so that . . . those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

Before the month closed, Mr. Bush reversed himself at the American Legion national convention in Nashville. He said: "We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war we did not start yet one that we will win." He later added, “we are winning, and we will win."

Campaign Finance Reform

President Bush was initially against the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. He opposed any soft-money limits on individuals to national parties.

But Mr. Bush later signed McCain-Feingold into law. The law, named for Senate sponsors John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., barred both national parties from collecting soft money from individuals.

During the 2000 race, Mr. Bush showed support for the so-called 527 groups’ right to air advertising.

In March 2000, he told CBS News' "Face the Nation," "There have been ads, independent expenditures, that are saying bad things about me. I don't particularly care when they do, but that's what freedom of speech is all about.”

In late August of this year, in an effort to distance himself from controversial anti-Kerry ads by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Mr. Bush reversed his position, announcing he would join McCain in legal action to stop these "shadowy" organizations.

Though it would close the Swift Boat group's funding, court action would also silence well-funded liberal 527 organizations like MoveOn.org and America Coming Together.

Gas Prices

Mr. Bush was critical of Al Gore in the 2000 campaign for being part of “the administration that's been in charge” while the “price of gasoline has gone steadily upward.” In December 1999, in the first Republican primary debate, Mr. Bush said President Clinton “must jawbone OPEC members to lower prices.”

As gas topped a record level of $50 a barrel this week, Mr. Bush has shown no propensity to personally pressure, or “jawbone,” Mideast oil producers to increase output.

A spokesman for the president reportedly said in March that Mr. Bush will not personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds.

The Fastest Man in the World: A Woman?

2004-09-30T15:59:00.000Z

I am not smart enough to know which side to believe, but it is certainly an interesting debate.

Personally, I find their prediction that the winning times in 150 years will be around eight seconds almost as unbelievable as women beating men.

From Nature.com:

Will Women Outpace Men in 2156?

By Helen Pearson

The 2156 Olympic Games is bound to hold unforeseen events: a balmy Antarctic venue, say, or virtual reality volleyball. But according to a group of UK scientists, it might also go down in history as the first year that women beat men in the 100-metre sprint.

To come up with this controversial prediction, epidemiologist Andrew Tatem of the University of Oxford and his colleagues plotted men and women's winning 100-metre Olympic times since 1900, and used this to forecast how race times would change in the future.

Women's times have been improving steadily faster than men's in recent years, they showed. If this trend continues, they calculate that a woman should be the fastest person in the world 152 years from now, give or take an ample statistical margin of 724 years. Women would triumph in a time of 8.079 seconds compared to men's 8.098, they report in Nature.

The study revives a long-standing debate about whether the gender gap in athletics will ever disappear. In 1992, for example, a paper in Nature predicted that women would surpass men's marathon times in 1982. They did not.

As they were about the previous prediction, sports scientists are sceptical about this one. They say the reason women's performance has been improving faster is because women have had growing opportunities to participate in sport and train at a competitive level. But, they say, this faster pace of advancement will level out before women's times overtake the men's.

The conventional view is that there are basic differences between male and female physiology that mean men will always maintain around a 10% advantage in strength and endurance sports. Because the new analysis ignores this, "it is flawed at a fundamental level," says exercise physiologist Carl Foster at the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse.

For example, testosterone in men tends to create more muscle and oxygen-carrying haemoglobin than women possess. And female reproductive hormones mean that women, including super-lean athletes, tend to carry around more fat for their body weight than men, and this slows them down.

To illustrate these points, exercise scientist Kirk Cureton of the University of Georgia, Athens, and his team made men carry weights that mimicked the body-fat ratio of women. When he put them on a treadmill, some of the gender gap in performance disappeared. Similarly, bleeding men of some of their haemoglobin evened up performances to some extent.

Indeed, athletics experts rack their brains to think of any sport in which women's physical characteristics might allow them to outstrip their male counterparts. Swimming the English Channel might be one event, suggests Foster, because fat is so crucial for keeping warm.

For his part, Tatem acknowledges that there are difficulties in foretelling the Olympic future, but says there is no proof that women's times will level out. "I should be happy to stake my reputation on the predicted date," he says. "If I'm wrong anyone is welcome to come and question me about the result after the 2156 Olympics."

"Sentenced to Be Raped"

2004-09-30T12:59:00.000Z

I do not really care much for Kristof, but this story, equal parts tragedy and inspiration, deserves to be read.

Sentenced to Be Raped

By Nicholas D. Kristof

I'm still trying to help out President Bush by tracking down Osama bin Laden. After poking through remote parts of Pakistan, asking for a tall Arab with a beard, I can't say I've earned that $25 million reward.

But I did come across someone even more extraordinary than Osama.

Usually we journalists write about rogues, but Mukhtaran Bibi could not be more altruistic or brave, as the men who gang-raped her discovered. I firmly believe that the central moral challenge of this century, equivalent to the struggles against slavery in the 19th century or against totalitarianism in the 20th, will be to address sex inequality in the third world - and it's the stories of women like Ms. Mukhtaran that convince me this is so.

The plight of women in developing countries isn't addressed much in the West, and it certainly isn't a hot topic in the presidential campaign. But it's a life-and-death matter in villages like Meerwala, a 12-hour drive southeast from Islamabad.

In June 2002, the police say, members of a high-status tribe sexually abused one of Ms. Mukhtaran's brothers and then covered up their crime by falsely accusing him of having an affair with a high-status woman. The village's tribal council determined that the suitable punishment for the supposed affair was for high-status men to rape one of the boy's sisters, so the council sentenced Ms. Mukhtaran to be gang-raped.

As members of the high-status tribe danced in joy, four men stripped her naked and took turns raping her. Then they forced her to walk home naked in front of 300 villagers.

In Pakistan's conservative Muslim society, Ms. Mukhtaran's duty was now clear: she was supposed to commit suicide. "Just like other women, I initially thought of killing myself," said Ms. Mukhtaran, now 30. Her older brother, Hezoor Bux, explained: "A girl who has been raped has no honorable place in the village. Nobody respects the girl, or her parents. There's a stigma, and the only way out is suicide."

A girl in the next village was gang-raped a week after Ms. Mukhtaran, and she took the traditional route: she swallowed a bottle of pesticide and dropped dead.

But instead of killing herself, Ms. Mukhtaran testified against her attackers and propounded the shocking idea that the shame lies in raping, rather than in being raped. The rapists are now on death row, and President Pervez Musharraf presented Ms. Mukhtaran with the equivalent of $8,300 and ordered round-the-clock police protection for her.

Ms. Mukhtaran, who had never gone to school herself, used the money to build one school in the village for girls and another for boys - because, she said, education is the best way to achieve social change. The girls' school is named for her, and she is now studying in its fourth-grade class.

"Why should I have spent the money on myself?" she asked, adding, "This way the money is helping all the girls, all the children."

I wish the story ended there. But the Pakistani government has neglected its pledge to pay the schools' operating expenses. "The government made lots of promises, but it hasn't done much," Ms. Mukhtaran said bluntly.

She has had to buy food for the police who protect her, as well as pay some school expenses. So, she said, "I've run out of money." Unless the schools can raise new funds, they may have to close.

Meanwhile, villagers say that relatives of the rapists are waiting for the police to leave and then will put Ms. Mukhtaran in her place by slaughtering her and her entire family. I walked to the area where the high-status tribesmen live. They denied planning to kill Ms. Mukhtaran, but were unapologetic about her rape.

"Mukhtaran is totally disgraced," Taj Bibi, a matriarch in a high-status family, said with satisfaction. "She has no respect in society."

So although I did not find Osama, I did encounter a much more ubiquitous form of evil and terror: a culture, stretching across about half the globe, that chews up women and spits them out.

We in the West could help chip away at that oppression, with health and literacy programs and by simply speaking out against it, just as we once stood up against slavery and totalitarianism. But instead of standing beside fighters like Ms. Mukhtaran, we're still sitting on the fence.

Al Gore's Two Cents

2004-09-30T03:59:00.000Z

This Op-Ed appeared in today’s New York Times.

How to Debate George Bush

By Al Gore

This year, as usual, the dominance of attack advertisements on television has made it hard to get a clear picture of where the candidates stand. But the same media revolution that brought us the 30-second commercial also brought us televised presidential debates - and ever since the first of them 44 years ago, they have played a crucial role in shaping voters' opinions of the candidates.

America has long been devoted to the clash between opposing advocates as the best way to evaluate information. In this era of media clutter, it is all the more important for voters to have this moment of simple clarity when the candidates appear before them stripped of advisers, sound bites and media spin.

My advice to John Kerry is simple: be prepared for the toughest debates of your career. While George Bush's campaign has made "lowering expectations" into a high art form, the record is clear - he's a skilled debater who uses the format to his advantage. There is no reason to expect any less this time around. And if anyone truly has "low expectations" for an incumbent president, that in itself is an issue.

But more important than his record as a debater is Mr. Bush's record as a president. And therein lies the true opportunity for John Kerry - because notwithstanding the president's political skills, his performance in office amounts to a catastrophic failure. And the debates represent a time to hold him to account. For the voters, these debates represent an opportunity to explore four relevant questions: Is America on the right course today, or are we off track? If we are headed in the wrong direction, what happened and who is responsible? How do we get back on the right path to a safer, more secure, more prosperous America? And, finally, who is best able to lead us to that path?

A clear majority of Americans believe that we are heading in the wrong direction. The reasons are obvious. The situation in Iraq is getting worse. Osama bin Laden is alive and plotting against us. About 2.7 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. Forty-five million Americans are living without health insurance. Medicare premiums are the highest they've ever been. Environmental protections have been eviscerated.

In the coming debates, Senator Kerry has an opportunity to show voters that today American troops and American taxpayers are shouldering a huge burden with no end in sight because Mr. Bush took us to war on false premises and with no plan to win the peace. Mr. Kerry has an opportunity to demonstrate the connection between job losses and Mr. Bush's colossal tax break for the wealthy. And he can remind voters that Mr. Bush has broken his pledge to expand access to health care.

Senator Kerry can also use these debates to speak directly to voters and lay out a hopeful vision for our future. If voters walk away from the debates with a better understanding of where our country is, how we got here and where each candidate will lead us if elected, then America will be the better for it. The debate tomorrow should not seek to discover which candidate would be more fun to have a beer with. As Jon Stewart of the "The Daily Show'' nicely put in 2000, "I want my president to be the designated driver.''

The debates aren't a time for rhetorical tricks. It's a time for an honest contest of ideas. Mr. Bush's unwillingness to admit any mistakes may score him style points. But it makes hiring him for four more years too dangerous a risk. Stubbornness is not strength; and Mr. Kerry must show voters that there is a distinction between the two.

If Mr. Bush is not willing to concede that things are going from bad to worse in Iraq, can he be trusted to make the decisions necessary to change the situation? If he insists on continuing to pretend it is "mission accomplished," can he accomplish the mission? And if the Bush administration has been so thoroughly wrong on absolutely everything it predicted about Iraq, with the horrible consequences that have followed, should it be trusted with another four years?

The biggest single difference between the debates this year and four years ago is that President Bush cannot simply make promises. He has a record. And I hope that voters will recall the last time Mr. Bush stood on stage for a presidential debate. If elected, he said, he would support allowing Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada. He promised that his tax cuts would create millions of new jobs. He vowed to end partisan bickering in Washington. Above all, he pledged that if he put American troops into combat: "The force must be strong enough so that the mission can be accomplished. And the exit strategy needs to be well defined."

Comparing these grandiose promises to his failed record, it's enough to make anyone want to, well, sigh.

Volcanic Eruption?

2004-09-30T00:59:00.000Z

Rumor has it that Mount Saint Helens might be ready to erupt.

For a first-hand view, click here.

Good Websites

2004-09-29T21:59:00.000Z

Take a look around the Exploratorium, or at least the museum's excellent website.

Upcoming: Nobel Prizes

2004-09-29T18:59:00.000Z

With the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature (as well as Peace, Economics, ect.) to be announced in the coming weeks, today is as good a time as any to make the annual round of completely worthless prognostications.

Having searched the web, I can say with all certainty that this year's favorites seem to be:

Janet Frame (New Zealand) - Most people have her as the top contender.
Mario Vargas Llosa (Venezuela)
Philip Roth (American)
Inger Christensen (Denmark)
Tomas Transtroemer (Sweden)
António Lobo Antunes (Portugal)
Carlos Fuentes (Mexico)

If either Don DeLillo or Margaret Atwood win, someone please shoot me.

If they want to make a political point, they could pick the Chinese cell phone novel guy.

Apparently, there is a campaign to get J.K. Rowling nominated.

An outside shot (but aren't they all?): Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua & Barbuda)

And, as always, Harold Bloom picks Cormac McCarthy.

Then again, if they pick a poet, all bets are off. A couple possible poets:

Ali Ahmad Said, aka Adonis (Syria)
Yves Bonnefoy (France)

Iraq Security Picture

2004-09-29T15:59:00.000Z

While the U.S. media constantly refer to "the situation in Iraq", they rarely describe it.

The BBC has put together a nice analysis of the current situation in Iraq's major cities.

I'm Really Not Sure What to Say about This

2004-09-29T12:59:00.000Z

On a steep, narrow street above Chinatown works Jonathon Keats, a tweed-suited, bow-tied 32-year-old who, with assistance from a phalanx of scientists, is genetically engineering God in his apartment.

Advisers to Keats' organization, the International Association for Divine Taxonomy, include biochemists, biophysicists, ecologists, geneticists and zoologists from the University of California at Berkeley, the Smithsonian and other institutions of scientific repute. The mission: to determine where on the phylogenetic map -- the scientific tree of life -- to put God.

Keats, as you may suspect, is not a scientist. He's a conceptual artist. But legitimate scientists, such as Smithsonian zoologist Mark Moffett and Berkeley geneticist Tom Cline, happily lend Keats credibility by helping him design experiments and interpret the results.

"He's applying a rigorous scientific question to the absurd," Cline said. "That's where the irony comes in, what makes you think about it.

"But then the question is: What is ludicrous about it? It introduces people to the kinds of systems used to answer questions -- though this isn't the kind of question people usually ask."

Keats' project asks some serious scientific questions -- and no small number of religious ones: If evolutionary theory is accurate, then God's genetic makeup should most resemble Earth's first life forms. Or, if creationists are right, then God's DNA is more like the life forms he created in his own image.

Said another way: Is God more like blue-green algae or the fruit fly?

After all, blue-green algae (aka cyanobacteria) are the first known organism on Earth, evolutionarily more primitive than mammals or even slime molds. At the other end of the tree, the fruit fly sits on the same phylogenetic branch as man.

Without flinching or cracking a smile, Keats explains that the first step in his study -- which will be made public at San Francisco's Modernism gallery Wednesday -- was to hypothesize where exactly God might sit in the three-domain tree of life.

Recognizing that God probably is unique enough, genetically speaking, to warrant a category of his own, Keats added a fourth domain to the existing Archaea, Bacteria and Eucarya, dubbed Divinea. It includes Pagan and Hindu gods, as well as Diveneus deus, Keats' scientific moniker for the monotheistic God known as Jehovah, Yahweh or Allah.

"All the same god with different names, just like different plants in different countries all have the same name," Keats said.

In keeping with his "blue-green algae or fruit fly" premise, Keats created two hypothetical four-domain versions of the tree of life. The Divinea are near the domain Bacteria in one version, and near domain Eucarya, home of the animal and plant kingdoms, in the other.

"Ordinarily, to fit a species on the phylogenetic tree would be to sequence its genome," he explains, "but nobody I contacted had a sample of God's DNA."

So he decided to genetically engineer a god. Since testing his hypotheses for all gods in Divinea might overwhelm the lab in his apartment, he focused on Divineus deus.

Using "continuous in-vitro evolution," Keats tried to mutate a species -- bacteria or fruit fly -- to make it more godlike. He calls it "an accelerated form of Darwinian natural selection," which, he points out, is a standard scientific procedure.

To begin, he gathered petri dishes and bell jars, light and decibel meters, a healthy supply of cyanobacteria and about 160 caged fruit flies.

"Then I put it in controlled lab conditions that would be amenable to God," he said.

Based on readings of those who have observed God in the field, from St. Augustine to Muhammad, Keats determined that worship was one such condition. So his laboratory also acquired MP3 recordings of prayer. He prepared three recordings: the Jewish Shema, the Muslim Allahu Akbar, and the Christian Kyrie Eleison.

"I didn't know which prayer would be most effective for mutation," he said.

Keats played the prayers on an endless loop for seven days and nights -- a standard Biblical time period -- while control-group flies listened to live talk radio. He documented light and sound intensity daily to ensure consistency between groups.

But how does one measure the godliness of bacteria versus a fruit fly? (Keats opted for flies in lieu of humans, which, he said, would require "a really big bell jar.") After briefly considering omnipotence, Keats decided to measure omnipresence. Did the number of organisms increase? How fast? In the case of the fruit flies, Keats, who considers himself Jewish "by heritage," found the Christian Kyrie prayer brought about increased and statistically significant reproduction compared to the control group.

"By a random mutation, the fruit flies appear to have become more godlike, capable of metabolizing worship into divinity," he said.

Unfortunately, the results aren't definitive: Keats also detected abnormal population growth after he exposed cyanobacteria to the Kyrie, but couldn't compare the cell count to the flies because he used petri dishes instead of a liquid medium. So, at the First Congress of the International Association for Divine Taxonomy, Wednesday at Modernism, Keats will run the experiment again, this time putting the cyanobacteria in liquid to enable an accurate count using a microscope.

Whatever the outcome, Keats' real interest is to explore whether faith and reason can peaceably coexist. "There's a schism between science and religion, a sense that you have to pick sides, and it threatens to turn us all into fundamentalists of one sort or another," he said. "Science rejects God for want of empirical evidence, and religion rejects the scientific method the moment it contradicts the Bible.

"I'm trying to explore whether faith and reason can peaceably coexist. I think they can. So this project is truly a thought experiment: By taking the assumptions of extremists on both ends of the spectrum, and combining them, I'm hoping we can sort out the implications."

As if in direct answer to Keats' stated motivations, William Dembski, a proponent of intelligent design, called the project "scientifically jejune and theologically incompetent." Dembski, a Baylor University professor of science, religion and philosophy, also noted that if the God element were removed, the project would be "strictly conventional biological research."

Other observers, however, may be picking up on Keats' decidedly dadaist undertone. "It's hard to tell from this whether Mr. Keats is just having some fun or is seriously deranged," said Michael Behe, Lehigh University biology professor and renowned anti-Darwinist author. "I wish him well and look forward to hearing of his results."

For now, Keats has an organization to run. Wednesday he'll be signing up new members to the International Association for Divine Taxonomy, which so far includes web entrepreneur Craig Newmark and best-selling author Po Bronson. Modernism gallery will also be screening a documentary on the project by filmmaker Paul Lundahl. And, perhaps most important of all, given the contentious questions at stake, refreshments will be served from 5:30 p.m. until 8 p.m.

Beyond Strange: Now You Can Be John Kerry!

2004-09-29T03:59:00.000Z

Kuma Reality Games is offering subscribers the chance to re-enact John Kerry's Vietnam swift boat missions.

The Kerry mission is part of a series of re-enactments that include Operation Anaconda and Qusay and Uday Hussein's last stand in Iraq.

Keith Halper, CEO of Kuma, said, "We hope people who experience the mission will come away with a deeper appreciation of Kerry's service and the service of all Swift Boat Veterans in Vietnam.

"For years, the military has used simulation tools to gain an understanding of complex events. We think it's time that civilians had access to the same tools."

In response to a question regarding a possible Texas Air National Guard game, Mr Halper said: "We'd like to get a deferment on that question."

Flatter, Bigger, Younger

2004-09-29T00:59:00.000Z

From today's New York Times:

"The number of cosmetic surgeries performed on people 18 and under reached 74,233 in 2003, a 14 percent increase from 2000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Girls and boys as young as 6 get plastic surgery to flatten protruding ears. Adolescents of 13 or 14 have nose jobs. And nearly 3,700 breast augmentation surgeries were performed on teenage girls last year, according to the society. Almost as many teenage boys - 3,300 - had overly developed breasts reduced."

On one level, it is easy to dismiss this as disgusting and disturbing.

At the same, it is complex issue/situation, as the worlds of overbearing parents, bullying, peer pressure and reality television collide.

Napster Redux?

2004-09-28T21:59:00.000Z

The MPAA has formally criticized the use of BitTorrent, a new(ish) technology that people are using to download pirated movies in less time than it takes to watch (supposedly DVD quality, though I have not and will not try).

BitTorrent simultaneously downloads different parts of the film from other users. After the download is complete, the sharing network shuts down.

Speculation has been growing over when and if a lawsuit will be filed against creator Bram Cohen of Seattle and other users.

Dean v. Bush

2004-09-28T18:59:00.000Z

Peter Beinart (the editor of the New Republic) takes a look at how the election season might be going if Howard Dean were the Democratic nominee.

If Howard Dean Were the Candidate ...

By Peter Beinart

Political punditry is harder than it looks. That's what a lot of Democratic voters must be thinking right about now. Last winter Democratic-primary voters played political consultant. They tried to step inside the minds of swing voters and figure out which Democratic presidential candidate could beat George W. Bush. With an eye cast coldly on November, they rejected the man who had first won their hearts, Howard Dean, and flocked to the more "electable" choice, John Kerry. Among New Hampshire voters who said beating Bush was their biggest concern, Kerry beat Dean by a whopping 52 points.

Democratic voters should stick to their day jobs. With just five weeks until Election Day, there's reason to believe they guessed wrong — that Dean would be doing better against Bush than Kerry is. Yes, it's too late for Democrats to switch horses, but imagining how Dean might have done sheds light on what's going on now. Here's the logic:

Americans are upset about Iraq. Less than half of voters approve of Bush's handling of the war or say that it is going well or that it has made America safer. This frustration gives Democrats the national-security opportunity they've been waiting for. But so far, Kerry has blown it. By voting to authorize war, then criticizing it in the Democratic primaries, then saying he would have voted yes again — even if he had known that Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction — he has made his Iraq contortions, rather than the war itself, the issue. Even last week, as Kerry stepped up his attacks, Bush continued to evade them with one devastating word: flip-flop.

If Dean were the nominee, flip-flops wouldn't be the issue; Iraq would. The former Vermont Governor opposed the war from the start, and his rationale was as simple as Kerry's was convoluted: Saddam was not a threat. Of course, Dean would have had other general-election vulnerabilities. Republicans would have branded him the second coming of peacenik George McGovern. But Dean could have retorted that he (unlike Kerry) backed the first Gulf War. They would have ridiculed his lack of foreign policy experience. But there's an advantage to not having 20 years of Senate votes to defend, as Kerry has learned. (That's part of the reason Governors usually make stronger presidential candidates than Senators.)

Then there's Vietnam. In the primaries many of those Democratic voter-pundits figured Kerry's heroic service would reassure general-election voters that he was tough enough to lead the country after 9/11. But at best, Vietnam has proved a wash. After weeks of G.O.P.-orchestrated attacks on Kerry's war record, the Los Angeles Times in late August asked registered voters how his Vietnam service affected their vote. Twenty-three percent said it made them more likely to support Kerry, 21% said it made them less likely, and 53% said it had no effect.

And in a subtler way, Dean's lack of a war record might have actually helped him. For the Kerry campaign, Vietnam has been a crutch, an all-purpose response to any foreign policy attack. Partly as a result, Kerry's team didn't use the Democratic Convention to develop a compelling national-security message, a mistake it is frantically trying to remedy now. Dean, because he couldn't talk about Vietnam, might have focused on other things — like Bush's failure to get tough with the Saudis or fund homeland security — that Americans care more about than whether Lieutenant Kerry deserved his Bronze Star.

Dean would have one more, less tangible advantage: he doesn't sound like a politician. One reason the flip-flop charge has stuck is that Kerry, with his meandering, caveat-filled speaking style, often seems like a guy trying to avoid a straight answer. Sensing that vulnerability, Republicans have run the same playbook they ran against Al Gore: portraying Kerry's personality deficiencies as deficiencies of character. As a result, while Kerry leads Bush on most domestic issues, voters turn sour when asked about Kerry the man. In last week's TIME poll, Kerry's biggest deficit versus Bush was in "sticking to his positions." Only 37% of registered voters in the survey said Kerry does that, compared with 84% for Bush.

Dean wouldn't have that problem. Polls in Iowa showed him doing best among voters who value a candidate who "takes strong stands." It's true that Dean's passion exploded the night he lost Iowa — into a scream heard around the world. But it was the flip side of the spontaneity that made him seem authentic, a straight shooter. With his blunt, no-nonsense style, Dean actually evoked — more than any of his Democratic rivals — President Bush.

Were Dean the nominee, the Bush campaign would probably be going after him not as a flip-flopper but as a lefty. Lefty isn't exactly a term of endearment. But at least it evokes issues rather than character. Character debates sank Al Gore and threaten to sink John Kerry now. A debate about issues, on the other hand — especially the biggest issue of all, Iraq — is something Democrats could win.

Spinach Power

2004-09-28T15:59:00.000Z

Researchers at MIT recently announced that they had successfully created the world's first solid-state, photosynthetic solar cell.

Using spinach, researchers created a protein complex called Photosystem 1 (PSI).

Researchers think that one day, photosynthetic devices may power cell phones and laptops.

Previously, scientists had not been about to create a solid-state photosynthetic device.

Apparently, spinach is an extremely efficient plant when it comes to creating energy.

Each PSI is between 10 and 20 nanometers wide, meaning that 100,000 of them could potentially fit on the head of a pin.

A New Kind of Local Forecast

2004-09-28T12:59:00.000Z

QuakeSim, a new NASA-sponsored initiative, has announced that it is working on software to accurately predict earthquakes five to ten years in advance.

The first test models (for California) will be released in the next six months, though the timetable for the finished product is put at "the next decade".

They are finding, however, that some earthquakes are inherently unpredictable and thus the research is aimed at earthquakes with a magnitude of about 6.

For the National Geographic article on QuakeSim, click here.

The Next Iraqi War

2004-09-28T03:59:00.000Z

“It will be war till the end. Everyone says Kirkuk belongs to us: Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans. To whom will it belong? We want America to stay here and change minds—to teach what’s freedom, what’s human. That’s what our people don’t know. They are animals.”

Kirkuk has been held up by some as a model for national unity. But in this piece from the New Yorker, George Packer argues that Kirkuk might just be Iraq's most unstable city, the center of an ethnic power struggle between Arabs, Kurds and Turkomans. Packer shows how ancient history and Saddam Hussein's attempts at Arabization have turned Kirkuk into a fomenting center of fanaticism and uncertainty, and perhaps the center of a possible Iraqi civil war.

The Next Iraqi War

By George Packer

Luna Dawood was twenty-four years old when Saddam Hussein paid a surprise visit to her house in Kirkuk, the ethnically mixed city in northern Iraq. She admits that she reacted like a teen-ager. It was an October afternoon in 1983, and two Presidential helicopters landed in an open field; tanks cordoned off the tidy middle-class streets of the Arrapha neighborhood, home to employees of the state-owned Northern Oil Company; and Saddam, flanked by a large security entourage, showed up at the Dawoods’ kitchen door. The Baathists’ long-standing war against Iraqi Kurds was intensifying, and it appeared that Saddam wanted to secure the loyalty of those who worked in Kirkuk’s valuable oil industry. Even today, Dawood, whose father was employed by the oil company, recalls Saddam’s visit a bit giddily: he was handsome in his olive-drab military uniform, and paused to admire the house and ask friendly questions. His cologne was so overpowering that, for days afterward, Dawood couldn’t wash the scent off the hand that had shaken the President’s, and the living-room sofa smelled so strongly that it had to be given away.

Saddam refused coffee and chocolates, but a painting of a woman drawing water from a tree-shaded river caught his eye—Dawood’s brother, who was serving on the front in the Iran-Iraq war, had painted it—and the President claimed it as a gift. The Dawoods are Assyrian Christians, not Arabs, and when Saddam addressed Luna’s mother in Arabic she replied in English, which she’d learned from the British managers of the Iraqi Petroleum Company before it was nationalized by the Baathists, in 1972. “That time is gone,” Saddam scolded her. “You must learn Arabic.”

A Presidential trailer was parked in the Dawoods’ garden, and neighbors lined up to go inside for a private audience with the President. Saddam’s close adviser and half brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, presented each petitioner with three thousand dinars from a bag full of money. To her everlasting regret, Dawood was too timorous to enter Saddam’s trailer. Her younger sister Fula did so, and emerged with both the cash and a job at the oil company. One of Dawood’s cousins entreated Saddam to release his brother, who was serving five years in prison for comparing the face of a top Baathist official to that of a monkey; Saddam replied that he couldn’t interfere with the judicial system. Then he came out of the trailer to tell the assembled residents that Iraq was at war with Iran to protect the purity of Iraqi women from Ayatollah Khomeini’s rampaging troops. The helicopters took off, and everyone assumed that Saddam had left Kirkuk.

But the trailer remained in the Dawoods’ garden; their phone was cut off, and security men gathered in the kitchen. Without explanation, the family was told to spend the night on the second floor. At two in the morning, unable to sleep, Dawood went to the window and looked down at the garden. As if in a dream, she saw Saddam step out of the trailer wearing a white dishdasha. The next day, he was gone.

The President visited Kirkuk again in 1990. This time, his helicopter landed in the square in front of the municipal building. By then, Dawood was working there, as an accountant in the finance department. Saddam announced a campaign to beautify Kirkuk: the walled citadel—the oldest part of the city, situated on a plateau across the dry Khasa River bed from the modern city—was going to be cleaned up, beginning with the removal of the eight or nine hundred mostly Kurdish and Turkoman families living in its ancient houses. The next day, fifty million dinars arrived at Dawood’s office from Baghdad. She had forty-five days to dig through title deeds, some dating back to 1820, and pay compensation to displaced homeowners.

The process of emptying out the Kirkuk citadel was the climax of a forty-year campaign known to Iraqis as Arabization. Beginning in 1963, and continuing up to the eve of the American invasion last year, the Baathist regime in Baghdad deported tens of thousands of Kurds—some Kurdish sources put the number at three hundred thousand—from Kirkuk and the surrounding region, forced other ethnic minorities from their houses, and imported similar numbers of Arabs to Kirkuk from the south. Dawood’s job in city government, which she has held since the mid-nineteen-eighties, required her to distribute dinars to families forfeiting their homes, sift through crumbling property records, and handle the traffic of deportees at the municipal building. She was a bureaucratic expediter of ethnic cleansing.

I met Dawood during a trip to Kirkuk this summer. A slim, energetic forty-five-year-old, she is unmarried, and, unlike most Iraqi women, she wears Western clothes and carries herself with self-confidence. She has wide, startled eyes and the kind of strong nose seen on statuary from Nineveh, and when she talks about Kirkuk’s history under Saddam her anxious smile reveals a row of crooked teeth. “It was a tragedy I don’t want to remember,” she told me when we met in her office. She then proceeded to remember everything. “They were poor people,” she said. “Each one who came to take the money, in his eyes you saw the tractor coming to take his house.” Crowds awaiting deportation filled the hallway outside her office; women fainted. If the secret police instructed her to delay paying someone they intended to arrest, Dawood would quietly urge the reluctant man to leave Kirkuk without his money.

At the end of one long day, an old Kurdish farmer approached Dawood’s desk. She presented him with a consent form that granted the government ownership of his family’s land in exchange for several thousand dinars.

“I would like some water first,” the old man said before signing the document. Dawood gave him a glass. He drank the water, signed the form, and fell dead in her lap.

For the rest of the article, click here.

Great Lines in Film History

2004-09-28T00:59:00.000Z

"A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl."

The West

2004-09-27T21:59:00.000Z

"In the past, in what is now lost forever, there was a time when the land was sacred and the ancient ones were as one with it. A time when only the children of the great spirit were here to light the fires in these places with no boundaries, when the forest were as thick as the fur of the winter bear, when a warrior could walk from horizon to horizon on the backs of the buffalo, when the deserts were in bloom, and the streams as pure as the freshly fallen snow. In that time when there were only simple ways, I saw with my heart the conflict to come, and whether it was to be for good or bad, what was certain was that there would be change."

The State of Connecticut

2004-09-27T18:59:00.000Z

Well, clearly the whole Connecticut Weekend idea fizzled out.

It was a bad idea, anyway.

Paris, je t'aime

2004-09-27T15:59:00.000Z

Who knows when it will be released, or what it is really about, or if it will be any good...

According to one of the producers, "[Paris, je t'aime] will be a unique collective feature film that will constitute a two-hour cinematographic spectacle whose original structure will make for a dramatically different experience for its global audience."

Sure.

All I know is that the list of directors include the Coen brothers, Godard, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Wen Jiang, Tom Tykwer and Mamoru Oshii, among others.

The cast is a who's who of world cinema.

Here is a brief description of Tykwer's segment.

Pretty cool.

Red Sox Take 2 of 3 from the Yankees

2004-09-27T12:59:00.000Z

After the weekend series, all I have to say is that I am not sure who has the worst television announcers, the Sox or the Yankees.

Remdawg or Jim "Back When I Played" Kaat? It's a tough call.

On the other hand, John Sterling and Charlie Steiner form one of the best radio tandems in recent memory.

Booker Prize 2004

2004-09-27T03:59:00.000Z

The shortlist for the Booker Prize was announced on September 21th:

Bitter Fruit
The Electric Michelangelo
The Line of Beauty
Cloud Atlas
I'll Go to Bed at Noon

Three of them I have never heard of; neither, really, has Amazon. Bitter Fruit does look rather intriguing.

As for the two I have heard of (and read), The Line of Beauty was good; Cloud Atlas, on the other hand, I did not enjoy.

For the rest, you are on your own.

The winner will be announced on October 19th.

This Is a History Book Waiting to Happen

2004-09-27T00:59:00.000Z

Hitler's Secret Indian Army

By Mike Thomson

In the closing stages of World War II, as Allied and French resistance forces were driving
Hitler's now demoralised forces from France, three senior German officers defected.

The information they gave British intelligence was considered so sensitive that in 1945 it was locked away, not due to be released until the year 2021.

Now, 17 years early, the BBC's Document programme has been given special access to this secret file.

It reveals how thousands of Indian soldiers who had joined Britain in the fight against fascism swapped their oaths to the British king for others to Adolf Hitler - an astonishing tale of loyalty, despair and betrayal that threatened to rock British rule in India, known as the Raj.

The story the German officers told their interrogators began in Berlin on 3 April 1941. This was the date that the left-wing Indian revolutionary leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, arrived in the German capital.

Bose, who had been arrested 11 times by the British in India, had fled the Raj with one mission in mind. That was to seek Hitler's help in pushing the British out of India.

Six months later, with the help of the German foreign ministry, he had set up what he called "The Free India Centre", from where he published leaflets, wrote speeches and organised broadcasts in support of his cause.

By the end of 1941, Hitler's regime officially recognised his provisional "Free India Government" in exile, and even agreed to help Chandra Bose raise an army to fight for his cause. It was to be called "The Free India Legion".

Bose hoped to raise a force of about 100,000 men which, when armed and kitted out by the Germans, could be used to invade British India.

He decided to raise them by going on recruiting visits to Prisoner-of-War camps in Germany which, at that time, were home to tens of thousands of Indian soldiers captured by Rommel in North Africa.

Finally, by August 1942, Bose's recruitment drive got fully into swing. Mass ceremonies were held in which dozens of Indian POWs joined in mass oaths of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

These are the words that were used by men that had formally sworn an oath to the British king: "I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose."

I managed to track down one of Bose's former recruits, Lieutenant Barwant Singh, who can still remember the Indian revolutionary arriving at his prisoner of war camp.

"He was introduced to us as a leader from our country who wanted to talk to us," he said.

"He wanted 500 volunteers who would be trained in Germany and then parachuted into India. Everyone raised their hands. Thousands of us volunteered."

In all 3,000 Indian prisoners of war signed up for the Free India Legion.

But instead of being delighted, Bose was worried. A left-wing admirer of Russia, he was devastated when Hitler's tanks rolled across the Soviet border.

Matters were made even worse by the fact that after Stalingrad it became clear that the now-retreating German army would be in no position to offer Bose help in driving the British from faraway India.

When the Indian revolutionary met Hitler in May 1942 his suspicions were confirmed, and he came to believe that the Nazi leader was more interested in using his men to win propaganda victories than military ones.

So, in February 1943, Bose turned his back on his legionnaires and slipped secretly away aboard a submarine bound for Japan.

There, with Japanese help, he was to raise a force of 60,000 men to march on India.

Back in Germany the men he had recruited were left leaderless and demoralised. After mush dissent and even a mutiny, the German High Command despatched them first to Holland and then south-west France, where they were told to help fortify the coast for an expected allied landing.

After D-Day, the Free India Legion, which had now been drafted into Himmler's Waffen SS, were in headlong retreat through France, along with regular German units.

It was during this time that they gained a wild and loathsome reputation amongst the civilian population.

The former French Resistance fighter, Henri Gendreaux, remembers the Legion passing through his home town of Ruffec: "I do remember several cases of rape. A lady and her two daughters were raped and in another case they even shot dead a little two-year-old girl."

Finally, instead of driving the British from India, the Free India Legion were themselves driven from France and then Germany.

Their German military translator at the time was Private Rudolf Hartog, who is now 80.

"The last day we were together an armoured tank appeared. I thought, my goodness, what can I do? I'm finished," he said.

"But he only wanted to collect the Indians. We embraced each other and cried. You see that was the end."

A year later the Indian legionnaires were sent back to India, where all were released after short jail sentences.

But when the British put three of their senior officers on trial near Delhi there were mutinies in the army and protests on the streets.

With the British now aware that the Indian army could no longer be relied upon by the Raj to do its bidding, independence followed soon after.

Not that Subhas Chandra Bose was to see the day he had fought so hard for. He died in 1945.

Since then little has been heard of Lieutenant Barwant Singh and his fellow legionnaires.

At the end of the war the BBC was forbidden from broadcasting their story and this remarkable saga was locked away in the archives, until now. Not that Lieutenant Singh has ever forgotten those dramatic days.

"In front of my eyes I can see how we all looked, how we would all sing and how we all talked about what eventually would happen to us all," he said.

Good Filmmakers (Though Not Young)

2004-09-26T21:59:00.000Z

As talented and influencial a director as Wong Kar-Wai is, he is almost unknown in the United States. Hopefully, as this rather long article in The New York Times Magazine suggests, that is about to change.

Also, Tony Leung is a really good actor.

The Director's Director

By Jaime Wolf

Late one night in March of last year, in a crumbling area on the island of Macao off Hong Kong, a film crew milled around in the street, awaiting the arrival of Wong Kar-wai. In life as in art, Wong tends to make you acutely aware of time. His films are filled with clocks and calendars. He is also notorious for keeping people waiting: waiting for his films to go into production, waiting for the shooting day to begin and waiting for a recognizable story and structure to emerge from his long, uncertain process. This particular night, the crew was setting up to shoot scenes from Wong's eighth film, ''2046,'' an ambitious, star-studded, futuristic drama. (Its title refers to the 49th year after the 1997 British handover of Hong Kong.) There was nothing futuristic about the location: a dilapidated block bathed in a latticework of shadows and artificial golden light, it resembled the 1960's Hong Kong the director conjured for his previous film, the acclaimed ''In the Mood for Love.''

Shortly after midnight, a minivan pulled up, and Wong stepped out, clutching a sheaf of pages on which he had written out in longhand the next scenes to be shot. Copies were quickly distributed by an assistant director. If it appeared that Wong had arrived straight from a session of coffee-shop scribbling with a quick stop at Kinko's, the truth was not far off. Although shooting in Macao had required giving his company a few days' notice, Wong's standard M.O. is to tell actors a starting time and location as close to the last minute as possible. Nor does he tend to give them any dialogue or the specifics of a scene until it's time to shoot; instead, he rolls the camera, thrusting them into situations with which they have only just been presented.

A boarded-up shop off the street served as a dressing room. Wong's production designer and costumer, William Chang Suk-ping, adjusted the hair and clothing of the film's leading man, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, as Leung skimmed the pages. ''I'm the only one that can read Kar-wai's handwriting,'' Leung told me. ''So I always have to explain the dialogue to everyone else.'' His character hadn't been given a name yet, so his lines were simply slugged ''Wai,'' a diminutive of his Chinese name. In ''Mood for Love,'' Leung had played Chow Mo-wan, a lovesick writer. In ''2046'' he was also playing a writer, but this time, Wong had instructed him to behave like a ''Bukowski character,'' a heartless, careless, down-at-the heels gambler and Lothario. He read aloud the description of a scene coming up -- ''Interior, motel, making love'' -- then happily exclaimed, ''So many sex scenes in this movie!'' Chang chuckled.

For the rest of the story, click here.

A Cure for Blindness?

2004-09-26T18:59:00.000Z

In a study released in the September 16th edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, Japanese researchers announced that they had reconstructed four corneas using autologous oral mucosal epithelial cells.

Edit It Your Way

2004-09-26T15:59:00.000Z

I cannot see this concept becoming particularly mainstream, but it is intriguing. It is also potentially scary, if it is done without the creator's permission.

Outfoxed Offered for Remix

By Daniel Terdiman

For years, the remixing of songs, both licit and illicit, has been almost as common as the release of original music. The same has not been true of films: There have been only a few recuts of films by people other than the original director or editors, and few if any were legal.

But now, thanks to Robert Greenwald, the maker of the anti-Fox News Channel documentary Outfoxed, film may be poised to join music as a medium ripe for being re-edited and re-imagined by third parties.

Greenwald has announced that he is making much of the Outfoxed unedited footage available free of charge, under a Creative Commons license, to the public for remixing and re-using in nearly any manner imaginable. Under these licenses, holders of original copyrights give other people permission to use their content in other works without having to jump through the legal hoops of typical industry-made fare.

"I hope there will be a series of creative, interesting and different ways that this material will be utilized by all kinds of different folks," said Greenwald. "And I look forward to seeing what comes out of it. And toward that end, the possibilities are very exciting as to what people will do, because there are no limits other than creativity."

There's one catch. Greenwald won't release any Fox News footage contained in the original film. "I can't make the content from Fox available," Greenwald said. "I don't (own) that." Still, he's eagerly awaiting the results of his experiment, and is looking forward to the creative takes he's sure will come.

"What's exciting is that I made my film," Greenwald said, "and now here's raw material, and I hope people will do theirs."

To many in the film industry, Greenwald's decision to make the raw Outfoxed content available for download on Internet Archive and torrentocracy is an exciting move and one that could set an important precedent. By all accounts, it's one of the first times a major motion picture has been offered for public manipulation.

"It's fantastic," said Norm Hollyn, the head of the editing track at the USC School of Cinema-Television. "All it takes is a willingness to use the Creative Commons license and being brave enough to put your intellectual property out there for people to massage."

Why is remixing so common with music, but so rare with films?

"One reason is that the way in which films have traditionally been shot and distributed is on 35mm film," said Hollyn. "It was pretty difficult to put it into the hands of somebody who would want to do mashups. Also, on the other side, moving-video images take massive amounts of bandwidth now that everything is digitized. So it's only very recently that, with the advent of broadband, that this has even become remotely possible."

To be sure, there are some examples of Hollywood films that were remixed, but these were authorized by the original filmmakers.

One was 2001's Star Wars: The Phantom Edit, a fan-made remake of the first of the Star Wars prequels, and a play on its title, The Phantom Menace.

Another was film editor DJ Hupp's remix of Steven Spielberg's AI: Artificial Intelligence. Hupp felt that AI hadn't lived up to what Stanley Kubrick, who had originally been developing the film, would have brought to the screen.

"AI seemed like a perfect candidate for me, because there was all this criticism by Kubrick fans toward Spielberg about how he didn't do it justice," said Hupp. "So it seemed like a worthy candidate for a recut."

So Hupp got a hold of a copy of AI on DVD, ripped it onto his computer and then re-edited it in Adobe Premiere. The result? AI: The Kubrick Edit.

In both cases, the films were distributed on the internet.

But bootlegs aside, legitimate filmmakers have until now been loath to allow the public to remake their films.

"Films are primarily big-budget, intense works that involve the labor of dozens and dozens of people, but typically have one author, and as a result, they're a little more written in stone," said Rick Prelinger, a copyright activist and founder of the Prelinger Archives. "When you make a movie, there's a script and there's an editor and it's much more rigidified, and the work becomes a little bit more impenetrable. Movies come off as a lot more finished" than music.

There's also the matter of intellectual property protections.

"I don't think the major studios are very happy about putting out intellectual property for which they have contractual ownership," said Hollyn. Also, "most of the major studios have contracts with the talent, which would prohibit them from doing something like that or from doing it easily."

But Hollyn thinks Greenwald may be onto a smart viral-marketing campaign with the release of the raw Outfoxed content, and that it isn't hard to imagine other filmmakers following suit.

"I don't think there's a giant leap from Outfoxed to other kinds of movies," Hollyn said. "I think you'll see the smaller, independent filmmakers leading this. And the studios, if it catches on, will figure out a way to do this within their legal obligations."

To Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford Law School professor and leading thinker on copyright issues, Greenwald's use of technology is an innovation that will likely be imitated.

"It's a start," Lessig said. "Digital technology should invite a greater participation by 'the audience' in the 'broadcast.' We'd love to see this grow broadly."

He also believes the film industry shouldn't be threatened by Greenwald.

"A creator exercises his copyright according to his view about how best to spread his work," Lessig said. "That's the core of Hollywood's own claim."

*Amending History

2004-09-26T12:59:00.000Z

I am always struck by articles like the one below, where someone who is dead/very old is revealed to be an informer, a Nazi, ect.

It is a moral conundrum. Remember the Canadian man who was arrested several years ago for having served in the SS? He was in his 80s, and everyone in the neighborhood commented on how nice he was, how considerate and thoughtful.

What is justice in these cases?

If I had lived through the Holocaust, or was close to someone who had, I imagine it would be fairly clear.

But I didn't, and I don't, and so I am left to puzzle out my opinion, and whether my opinion matters.

Did it make Elia Kazan any less of a director that he named names (often incorrectly)?

Should we appreciate him less, he that nurtured James Dean and Marlon Brando?

Remember when Pol Pot was interviewed, and the world saw one of history's worst criminals as a tired old man?

Should we show leniency for a crime committed 50 years ago that is just as fresh and devasting for some people as it was back then?

Spanish laureate 'was informer'

A Nobel-prize winning Spanish author, Camilo Jose Cela, was an informer for the fascist regime of General Franco, according to an eminent historian.

Pere Ysas says he has discovered documents proving Cela offered information about his fellow writers to the country's information ministry.

He even suggested writers he considered ripe for conversion to General Franco's cause, The Guardian newspaper says.

The revelations will fan Cela's reputation as a mercurial character.

Subversive

Mr Ysas says he found a confidential report written for the country's former information minister and censor Manuel Fraga.

In it Cela reveals the names of a number of writers who had signed a letter condemning police violence against striking miners as members of the Spanish Communist party.

Mr Ysas, who publishes details of the allegation in his book Dissidence and Subversion, says that it seems Cela volunteered to furnish the ministry with the information.

"There is nothing that indicates any previous action calling for his help," Mr Ysas is quoted as telling the London-based newspaper.

"It seems this was something freely done by him."

It appears Cela, whose own work was censored, may have been trying to ingratiate himself with the regime, he said.

The writer won the Nobel prize for literature in 1989 "for a rich and intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision of man's vulnerability."

He died in 2002 at the age of 85.

Instapunditry: Weapons Galore

2004-09-26T03:59:00.000Z

Graham Allison has a piece in the October edition of The Atlantic that begins, "Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 have I been as frightened by a single news story as I was by the revelation late last year that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program, had been selling nuclear technology and services on the black market."

I wholehardedly agree, and find it ridiculous that the incident got as little press as it did.

Weapons proliferation is one of the scariest and most cruicial issues in the world today. Unfortunately, little has been done to address this problem.

And while we at least pay lip service to ending nuclear proliferation, small arms trade is just as big a problem.

Where do you think Chechen rebels, Iraqi insurgents, Sudanese militias and Congolese mercenaries get their weapons? They sure don't have a factory churning them out. But we turn a blind eye, for a variety of reasons.

Anyway, it was extremely disturbing when news got out that Abdul Qadeer Khan had been selling nuclear secrets. Then, Musharraf just pardoned him, and that was that.

The scariest part of the whole thing, as Allison goes on to note later in the article, is that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is hidden around the country, much of it in parts controlled by fundamentalist, anti-American, anti-Musharraf groups. What happens if Musharraf gets knocked off (it seems every few weeks we learn of another assasination attempt), or gets overthrown in a coup or simply loses in the next election (though I have to doubt this last possibility).

Clearly, I understood the need for us to align ourselves with Pakistan in the wake of 9/11, though I didn't like it.

In the greater scheme of things, though, we do this at the expense of our relationship with India, a country that recent Presidential administrations have seemed intent on ignoring.

I mean, India is the largest democracy in the world, a country that, along with China, will soon be one of the biggest players on the world stage.

We are not going to be friends with China, and as China's economic influence grows (details), we lose clout with our allies in the region, such as South Korea, Japan and even Australia.

Personally, I'm thinking that not alienating India might be a good idea; we don't have to hold hands, just stay friendly.

Some would say that cozying up to India would put us in even more unfavorable light in the Muslim, but given our staunch support for Israel, I would say that this argument is rather hypocritical.

Thus, for the United States to broker a peaceful and equitable solution to the Kashmir conflict (something we half-heartedly tried to do several years ago) would be in our interests, since Kashmir is viewed by many in the Islamic world as a source of conflict on par (or slightly below) with Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and (more recently, but certainly growing) Chechnya.

In sum, I think that it is fair to say that large-scale terrorism will again strike the United States in the future. Even with the best leaders, a determined terrorist attack would be hard to foil. Given the lack of domestic security infastructure currently in place, I would say that such an attack is inevitable.

Some sort of nuclear weapons use would also not surprise me, given the number of individuals and nations that have access to materials and information, and the lack of safeguards in place.

Bush and Kerry both have shitty foreign policy, with Bush having the additional negative of having destructive ideas. Kerry's ideas are merely worthless.

Neither one would do much to address weapons proliferation, AIDs and other infectious diseases, worldwide environmental change, human rights and the spread of terrorism to sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia.

Earlier in the week, Bush said that the world can no longer tolerate oppressive regimes in the name of stability. It would be nice if he meant it.

The world is a scary place.

"The Thin Blue Lie"

2004-09-26T00:59:00.000Z

I am not usually into true crime stuff, but I was fascinated by this story.

The Thin Blue Lie

By Benjamin Weiser

It was the coldest of cold cases. Twenty years had passed without an arrest in the killing of Officer Ronald S. Stapleton, who was found shot twice in the stomach with his own revolver, his right eye gouged out, in the parking lot of a Brooklyn bar in 1977. The police investigation had stalled; private detectives hired by his family were stymied, and their $5,000 reward for information went unclaimed.

Then came a startling break. A mobster arrested in a Boston drug case told the authorities that a New Jersey truck driver had bragged to him about killing the officer.

But there was a problem: the truck driver was white, and the old case files said that Officer Stapleton, before he died, had described his attackers as black.

Investigators tracked down Robert R. Race, a lawyer and friend of the officer's who had been at his hospital bedside, and asked if he could help square the discrepancy. Then they got another surprise. Mr. Race confessed that he had provided the description of the killers, and that it had been a lie.

"I'm not going to let a murderer walk," he told them. And with that, the lawyer began to try to fix something he had set terribly wrong two decades before. His cooperation, prosecutors say, was critical in convicting the truck driver.

The story of Mr. Race's decisions to lie and then come clean - culled from records in the case and interviews with him and others - defies black-and-white interpretations. It is a tale of good intentions marred by a serious breach of professional ethics, of Mafia secrets and racial stereotypes, and of a disciplinary process that struggled for three years to weigh the bad Mr. Race had done against the good.

In the end, he was suspended from practicing law for three months - a punishment that prosecutors say is far too mild for misleading a murder investigation and endangering the case.

But Mr. Race, 64, contends that his lie was harmless - that police detectives on the case never believed it - and that it was meant to prevent harm to the officer's family. He feared that Officer Stapleton's pension would be in jeopardy, he said, if the police brass learned that the off-duty policeman had been inside the bar, which officers were forbidden to visit because it was frequented by mobsters.

Mr. Race knew what could happen when officers broke the rules: he was a former officer himself, and the son and brother of policemen. And as a fledgling lawyer, he was torn between competing loyalties.

"I wasn't thinking like an attorney; I was thinking like a cop," he testified. "The first thought is to protect your own."

Trouble at 'a Wiseguy Place'

The call came just before dawn on Dec. 18, 1977, rousing Mr. Race from his bed in Oceanside, on Long Island: "Ronnie's been shot."

He rushed to Coney Island Hospital, where he found Officer Stapleton lying on a gurney in the emergency room; he had been attacked in the parking lot of the Tradewinds bar on Knapp Street in Sheepshead Bay. Mr. Race said Officer Stapleton knew he was going to die, telling him, "Take care of my wife and my kids."

Three months earlier, Mr. Race left the Police Department to work in a private law firm. Tall and fit, Mr. Race had joined the force 15 years earlier, walking a beat, then moving to plainclothes investigations of gambling, prostitution and narcotics. His former partner Thomas Armet recalls that in street situations, he was "right by your side - or in front of you."

Still, Mr. Race's dream was to become a lawyer, and after taking night courses at Brooklyn Law School, he worked in the department's Legal Division. He also organized a police ice hockey team that included Ronald Stapleton, a gregarious, Canadian-born officer who occasionally went barhopping after work - a "good-time guy," Mr. Race recalled.

In the hospital, struggling to speak, Officer Stapleton said he had stopped at the Tradewinds on his way home and had been attacked by two men as he left, Mr. Race recalled. He had seen only one of the men, who was tall and well-built, with an olive complexion; Officer Stapleton assumed he was a bouncer at the bar, Mr. Race has said.

There is no evidence that Officer Stapleton had any ties to the mob. But Mr. Race says he worried that his dying friend's visit to "a wiseguy place" could delay or endanger his pension, impoverishing his wife, Lorraine, their 9-year-old son, Ronnie, and an infant daughter who was autistic.

The lawyer says he quietly raised the matter with members of the family, who concocted a cover story that Officer Stapleton had noticed two men acting suspiciously at an amusement park near the bar, then drove to the bar's parking lot to investigate. That would help explain the officer's presence there. And the shooting would more likely be classified as occurring in the line of duty, making the family eligible for enhanced benefits.

"They had come up with a story that would try to disassociate him from the bar, and that's when the description was changed to black," Mr. Race testified. "And I agreed to do it."

Several relatives of Officer Stapleton said in recent interviews that they did not know of any such fabrication until Mr. Race admitted it years later, and that they doubted the family had taken part. But Vincent Cestare Jr., the officer's brother-in-law, said it was possible that his late father, also named Vincent, had collaborated in the tale.

In any case, the false account entered the official record. Four days after the shooting, Detective Roland Cadieux went to the surgical intensive care unit. As Officer Stapleton lay beside them, able only to nod his head, Mr. Race told the made-up story, which Detective Cadieux wrote up in the police report.

A Mob Soldier Talks

Officer Stapleton died two weeks later, on Jan. 3, 1978, and that year his family began receiving line-of-duty death and pension benefits.

But the murder investigation went nowhere. Paul Demartini, then a senior prosecutor in the Brooklyn district attorney's office, recalls that some black men were considered as possible suspects.

"When I looked through the file," he said, "there were a number of photos of black men that they had run record sheets on. Maybe they didn't spend an extensive amount of time going down that avenue, but some energy and time was expended."

Mr. Race has testified that he made it clear to Detective Cadieux that his account was false; the detective, who has retired, did not respond to requests for an interview. Detective Steve Kaplan, who later investigated the murder for the cold case squad, has testified that Detective Cadieux told him that "never in my wildest dreams did I believe there was male blacks - it was always male whites."

"He had told me that every organized crime figure that he had spoken to, the first question he would ask is, 'Who killed Ronald Stapleton?' " Detective Kaplan testified.

The Stapleton family hired private investigators and put up posters offering the $5,000 reward. The posters provided no description of the killer or killers. The officer's son, Ronnie, said his grandfather, Vincent Cestare, who hung one in the window of his glass shop in Brooklyn for two decades, was convinced that the killing involved mobsters because no witnesses had ever stepped forward. "The way they're going to get caught," Mr. Cestare once said, "is someday someone's going to open their mouth."

And that is what happened 20 years later.

In the Boston case, Frank Gioia Jr., a soldier in the Luchese crime family, had been cooperating with the authorities to avoid a stiff prison term. In 1997, he told F.B.I. agents that a man named Tony Francesehi had once told him that he and an associate, who was also white and had since died, were preparing to rob a bar in Sheepshead Bay years earlier when they ran into a police officer who "didn't want to mind his business."

"He said, 'So we did a number on him, and tortured him, gouged his eye out, killed him with his own gun and left him there,' " Mr. Gioia later testified.

The Truth at Last

The F.B.I. and the cold case squad traced Mr. Francesehi to Jackson, N.J., where he drove a garbage truck. But before he could be arrested, the authorities had to resolve the conflict with the old police report.

"We won't be able to convict someone who's not black," Mr. Demartini, the prosecutor, recalled thinking. He said he suggested that investigators find Mr. Race "and see if they can flush out what really happened when he came into the hospital and spoke to Stapleton."

By then, Mr. Race was 58, with a solid legal practice in Manhattan and dozens of murder cases under his belt. He served on the alumni board of Brooklyn Law School, mentored law students and donated legal services to a child-protection group. He was in his second marriage and had four children.

On Oct. 8, 1998, he met with Detective Kaplan and two F.B.I. agents in a van near the criminal court at 100 Centre Street in Manhattan. After the investigators explained their quandary, Detective Kaplan later testified, Mr. Race took a deep breath and said, "You know, this could get me in a lot of trouble, but I'll tell you what happened."

Mr. Race recalls that he was completely candid. "I never hesitated," he said.

"Mr. Race stated that the story concerning male blacks assaulting Stapleton was total fabrication," Detective Kaplan wrote in a summary of the meeting.

Mr. Demartini says the lawyer later explained that he felt comfortable telling the truth because the statute of limitations had run out on a prosecution for any crime he might have committed. But Mr. Race says he knew he could still face professional discipline.

At Mr. Francesehi's murder trial in September 1999, Mr. Race took the stand and admitted he had changed Officer Stapleton's story.

"Did Ronald Stapleton ever tell you that a black man attacked him?" Mr. Demartini asked.

"No," Mr. Race replied.

In closing arguments, Mr. Francesehi's lawyer said Mr. Race was still lying. And even the prosecutor who defended Mr. Race's credibility took a moment to denounce the way he had labeled the killers as black.

"Is it ironic that the perpetrator of this fraud is named Race?" asked the prosecutor, Kenneth Taub. "I can't even begin to imagine what you think of that scoundrel. It embarrasses me that he is in the same profession that I am."

The trial ended with Mr. Francesehi convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life to prison. But Mr. Race's trials were just beginning.

Defending a Lie

The office of the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, reported Mr. Race to the lawyer disciplinary agency for Manhattan, an arm of the Appellate Division, which can impose sanctions as serious as disbarment. Over the next three years, his lie was analyzed and debated by investigators, a referee, a review panel and judges.

In hearings before the referee, the agency's lawyer, Jeremy S. Garber, said that Mr. Race should have known that his invented account could hinder the investigation or the prosecution. The agency asked that he be suspended for a year.

But Mr. Race's lawyer, Jerome Karp, argued that he should simply receive a private letter of reprimand. A yearlong suspension, he said, would deter other lawyers from admitting past mistakes. Had Mr. Race not been truthful when questioned in 1998, Mr. Karp said, prosecutors could never have convicted Mr. Francesehi - a point that a prosecutor confirmed.

Mr. Karp said his client "could very easily have said, 'Well, I don't remember anything more than I said at the time.' He would have had no problem." The family would have its pension benefits, he said, and a murderer would remain free. "But he chose not to do that, even at the expense of his own career as a lawyer."

Mr. Race defended his fabrication. "Is it wrong? Yes." But he was trying to "take care of the wife and kids."

"I mean, who am I to play judge and jury?" he asked, adding, "I felt I - I owed him something."

The referee, Marjorie A. Lesch, ruled that lying by a lawyer is inexcusable. But when Mr. Race lied, she said, he was an inexperienced lawyer moved by his police background "to come to the aid of a fallen comrade." He did not impede the investigation, she wrote, because his false account "was condoned and given with the full knowledge of the detectives investigating the case."

She carved out a compromise on the penalty, recommending a public censure, which would be filed in court records and published in the city's legal newspaper.

But the panel that reviewed her findings called for a three-month suspension. Any penalty less severe, the panel said, "would suggest to the public and the bar that an attorney who lies to the police during an official investigation can be excused if the attorney has an arguably benevolent purpose." The Appellate Division affirmed the suspension in June 2002.

As part of his punishment, Mr. Race had to destroy his stationery and business cards. He canceled his professional telephone listing, withdrew from cases and notified his clients of his suspension. It was actually four months before the court lifted the suspension, in November 2002, and Mr. Race began practicing law again. Two years later, he works from a second-floor-walk-up office on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

Looking back, Mr. Race said the punishment was fair, but painful and costly, in legal fees and lost income. "I got killed," he said.

Mr. Demartini, the former prosecutor, said the suspension was much too brief, even though Mr. Race had helped convict Mr. Francesehi. "It goes to the heart of what it means to be a lawyer," he said of the lie. "You're supposed to be trustworthy in all aspects of your practice."

Mr. Francesehi, who is serving his sentence at Green Haven, the maximum-security prison in Stormville, N.Y., said in an interview that he was innocent. He said that he believed Mr. Race's initial account that the killers were black, and that the lawyer changed his story to help close the case and make himself look good. "I was used as a scapegoat," said Mr. Francesehi, who has unsuccessfully challenged his conviction in state and federal court.

But not everyone is displeased with Mr. Race.

Ronnie Stapleton, the officer's son, who is now 36, said the pension benefits allowed his mother to stay at home and care for him and his autistic sister. The money was crucial about eight years ago, when his mother suffered a brain aneurysm; she has since required round-the-clock care. Despite the fears voiced by Mr. Race two decades earlier, the benefits were not stopped even after the true circumstances of the case were divulged.

Mr. Stapleton has not stayed in touch with Mr. Race, but said he believed that the lawyer acted out of compassion - both in telling the lie, then recanting so the killer could be caught. "He didn't have to step up," he said.

Vincent Cestare Jr., the officer's brother-in-law and himself a retired New York police officer, said he understood why Mr. Race risked his career by lying. "There are some things in life," he said, "you make a decision, you feel you did the right thing, you worry about the consequences later."

More Connecticut Stuff

2004-09-25T21:59:00.000Z

If it is September, it must be the Durham Fair!

Held during the last weekend of September, the Fair was established in 1916.

It is the largest agricultural fair in Connecticut (that means that they do milk cows), and it is the largest volunteer-run fair in North America.

This year, recording artists Sawyer Brown, Chase Adkins and Eddie Money headline the entertainment.

They have livestock, pulling contests, competitive exhibits, and a midway.

Come on down!

(yeah)

Need a Definition (Or the Correct Spelling)?

2004-09-25T18:59:00.000Z

This is a pretty good program. And it's free.

Instapunditry: Taiwan

2004-09-25T15:59:00.000Z

With the news today that Taiwan has decided to buy 18 billion dollars worth of weapons from the United States (and the ensuing protests from Taiwanese citizens), I was struck by this thought:

What if tomorrow, China decided that it had had enough of Taiwan's bullshit and that it was going to invade?

Clearly, China would quickly overrun the country.

What would the United States do?

Should we do anything?

And what about our allies in the region? Do you think Japan, South Korea and Australia would raise a peep if China attacked Taiwan?

We let China do what it wants in Tibet and other western "provinces" and Russia is left alone in Chechnya, though these places obviously lack the strategic importance of Taiwan.

As I have said before: Now seems a good time to make friends with India.

VoIP Test

2004-09-25T12:59:00.000Z

Are you using VoIP yet, as advertised on this site a few weeks ago.

If you are, this site may be most helpful.

Spam Logger

2004-09-25T03:59:00.000Z

This guy has kept all the spam he has received since mid-1997 and charted it.

Kind of interesting.

[via bookofjoe]

Most Expensive Place to Live

2004-09-25T00:59:00.000Z

Last month, The Economist released its annual list of the most expensive cities in the world.

Tokyo leads the way, but nine of the top 11 cities are European.

New York, the most expensive American city, is 27th.

Ah, the decline of the dollar.

Just wait for 15 years when India and China are all-powerful and Bush's tax cuts are being felt full-force.

Newer, Smarter, Cleaner (?)

2004-09-24T21:59:00.000Z

Japanese Dai Nippon Printing Co. has announced the LG WM-2277HW, a washing machine that can read smart tags on clothing and tell you how best to wash them. It can even tell you how many times a certain article of clothing has been washed.

The best (or worst, depending on your outlook) part: When it is done, the washing machine will send you an SMS or an email.

Suburbia, Part Two

2004-09-24T18:59:00.000Z

I once went to school in New York City with a number of students from around the country.

One day, I told someone from San Francisco about the town where I grew up.

When I finished, she asks, with the utmost seriousness, "So what's it like to milk cows?"

Needless to say, I've never milked any cows.

Suburbia

2004-09-24T15:59:00.000Z

I like to describe Connecticut as basically a large suburb, with several centers of (by American standards) extreme poverty and two patches of rural farmland in the northern corners of the state.

I once told this to Kenneth Jackson, and he nodded, so my theory must have some value.

We are the richest state, but we have the poorest cities.

There are a surpising number of huge corporations based in Connecticut, from General Electric, United Technologies and Xerox to Subway, the WWF and Timex (We also have Ethan Allen, which I did not know before I looked here).

We have diversity, in theory, but nearly all of the white people live in the afore-mentioned large swath of suburbia, while nearly all of the black people (and other minority groups) live in the cities.

Connecticut is simply a strange mix of class and culture and consumerism, of race and rural and rich.

The View from Connecticut

2004-09-24T12:59:00.000Z

It has come to my attention that, all of a sudden, I have a number of foreign visitors to the site, including this guy from Denmark who has repeatedly tried to contact me (Not too sure why, but...).

Anyway, seeing as this site is supposed "the view from the east coast", and many of you (I assume) do not know much about Connecticut, this weekend has officially been dubbed "The View from Connecticut: A Primer".

Hurricane (?) Ivan

2004-09-24T03:59:00.000Z

The NWS's National Hurricane Center had this to say about Hurricane Ivan:

"AFTER CONSIDERABLE AND SOMETIMES ANIMATED IN-HOUSE DISCUSSION OF THE

DEMISE OF IVAN...IN THE MIDST OF A LOW-PRESSURE AND SURFACE FRONTAL

SYSTEM OVER THE EASTERN UNITED STATES...THE NATIONAL HURRICANE

CENTER HAS DECIDED TO CALL THE TROPICAL CYCLONE NOW OVER THE GULF

OF MEXICO TROPICAL DEPRESSION IVAN. WHILE DEBATE WILL SURELY

CONTINUE HERE AND ELSEWHERE...THIS DECISION WAS BASED PRIMARILY ON

THE REASONABLE CONTINUITY OBSERVED IN THE ANALYSIS OF THE SURFACE

AND LOW-LEVEL CIRCULATION."

Instapunditry: Bush at the UN

2004-09-24T00:59:00.000Z

"For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. The oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach."

Hmm...

This line got the biggest "applause" from the blogosphere

A short digression:

In his review of the speech, the National Review's Jonah Goldberg says that while Bush has created "more extremists and terrorists by fighting on their home turf", this is okay because the goal is "to rationalize the Middle East so that, while it may still produce enemies, they will be ones we can deal with around a table, not a crater."

Can someone please explain this to me? I am an intelligent person, I understand the rationalization argument, and agree with it in theory, though Bush has neither achieved or pursued this goal (Moktada al-Sadr, anyone?). But how Bush intends to rationalize the Middle East while creating extremists (mind you, this is Goldberg's argument, not Bush's) is beyond me.

My take on the applause line:

Yes, Bush has good speechwriters.

Yes, it is a good idea (something - "an idea" - that Kerry does not seem to grasp).

Is his administration the one to do it?

All signs would seem to point to no.

Also, I can't resist:

This logic does not apply to his "coalition of the willing", which included Angola, Georgia and Uzbekistan.

Also, at the risk of offending many people, I would venture that in the eyes of many (though not necessarily my own), our support for Israel "in the name of stability" in spite of "oppression" would qualify.

Just a thought.

"Where Are All the Stars?"

2004-09-23T21:59:00.000Z

Hubble's deepest shot is a puzzle

Scientists studying the deepest picture of the Universe, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, have been left with a big poser: where are all the stars?

The Ultra Deep Field is a view of one patch of sky built from 800 exposures.

The picture shows faint galaxies whose stars were shining just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

But the image's revelation that fewer stars than expected were being born at this time brings into question current ideas on cosmic evolution.

For the first time, we at last have real data to address this final frontier - but we need more observations Richard Ellis, California Institute of Technology

"Our results based on the Ultra Deep Field are very intriguing and quite a puzzle," says Dr Andrew Bunker, of Exeter University, UK, who led a team studying the new data.

"They're certainly not what I expected, nor what most of the theorists in astrophysics expected."

He is now urging the US space agency (Nasa) to proceed with a servicing mission to upgrade the orbital telescope so it can solve the mystery.

At issue is the timing of key events in the earliest stages of the Universe.

Scientists believe the super-hot conditions that existed after the Big Bang eventually cooled sufficiently to allow protons, neutrons and electrons to form neutral atoms of hydrogen and helium.

The transition also saw the cosmos plunge into darkness - the stars that could provide the light had yet to ignite.

When they did, from infalling clouds of hydrogen and helium, the "dark ages" gave way to what has been dubbed the "cosmic renaissance".

What is more, these hot, young stars produced intense ultraviolet radiation which "fried" the gas in the Universe - to produce the diffuse intergalactic plasma detectable today.

But the Hubble Ultra Deep Field presents a problem for this story.

When Bunker and colleagues measured the rate of star formation in the image's earliest galaxies, they found it was insufficient to create the levels of radiation needed to produce the intergalactic plasma.

Another exciting possibility is that physics was very different in the early Universe Andrew Bunker, Exeter University

"There is not enough activity to explain the re-ionisation of the Universe," Dr Bunker told the BBC. "Perhaps there was more action in terms of star formation even earlier in the history of the Universe - that's one possibility.

"Another exciting possibility is that physics was very different in the early Universe; our understanding of the recipe stars obey when they form is flawed."

The Hubble data was supported by observations with the Keck telescope in Hawaii and the Gemini telescope in Chile.

It has to be said, the Bunker assessment is not totally shared by all groups working in this area. Four other teams investigating the UDF data have put their own very different interpretations
on what they see in the historic image.

For example, the team headed by Dr Massimo Stiavelli, from the Space Telescope Science Institute, in Baltimore, US, believes the populations seen may well have been able to re-ionise the Universe, provided the stars were bigger and possessed much fewer heavier elements than those we see today.

But what all astronomers believe is that to solve this puzzle, they need enhanced space-borne detectors that can better describe the long-wavelength light seen in the most distant stars.
The Hubble telescope will get this capability if Nasa goes ahead with a servicing mission and installs an instrument known as the infrared WideField Camera 3.

This is by no means certain, however, and astronomers may have to wait for the launch of Hubble's successor, the James Webb Telescope, early in the next decade.

"For the first time, we at last have real data to address this final frontier - but we need more observations," said Dr Richard Ellis, of the California Institute of Technology, US, who is passionate in his support of a mission to upgrade Hubble.

The Source of Bush's Success?

2004-09-23T18:59:00.000Z

According to Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal, "Issues probably matter less in a presidential race than many voters or political cognoscenti want to admit. Some political analysts think that just a third of voters, perhaps 40%, decide strictly on issues. At least as important is how voters feel about a presidential candidate.

"Voters want to like the candidate they are choosing for president, want to be comfortable seeing him or her on their television screen every night, and want to have a feeling that the candidate shares their basic values... And that's the intangible that explains why many will vote for Mr. Bush despite his blemishes -- and where he has an advantage over John Kerry."

[via politicalwire.com]

Damn Good Teas

2004-09-23T15:59:00.000Z

For excellent teas, try Harney and Sons.

They are based in Salisbury, Connecticut, and feature a fine selection of black, white, green and herbal teas.

I am enjoying a cup of their Midsummer's Peach tea right now.

Audio Bytes

2004-09-23T12:59:00.000Z

This post has two parts, both from yesterday's edition of All Things Considered:

--Interstate Bakeries (think Wonder Bread and Twinkies) files for bankruptcy, citing Atkins;

--Bush's new health plan for small business owners (honestly, I had never heard any of this)

Good Websites

2004-09-23T03:59:00.000Z

This site is a great addition to the pantheon of "zip code" sites.

I Wonder Who Drinks More: The Typical UConn Student, Or the Typical Irish Citizen?

2004-09-23T00:59:00.000Z

Binge drinking 'costs Irish $3bn'

By James Helm

The effects of drinking alcohol cost Ireland more than $3bn last year, according to a new report.
The study, which set out proposals to deal with alcohol problems, says levels of "binge drinking" are higher in Ireland than other European nations.

On average, each adult in Ireland spent nearly $2,400 on alcohol last year.

In recent years however, government and health experts have encouraged drinkers to take a sober look at the harm caused by alcohol abuse.

Ireland has a reputation for its enjoyment of alcohol, and for what is known as its pub culture.

The Strategic Task Force on Alcohol, asked to look into the issue by the Irish government, estimates that the health effects of alcohol, drink-driving and alcohol-related crime cost Irish society more than $3bn in 2003.

The task force recommends a range of measures including higher taxes on drink, limiting the number of outlets selling alcohol, and reducing the exposure of children to alcohol advertising.
It says alcohol advertising portrays it as fun, glamorous and risk-free.

"Smile, Shoot, Smile, Shoot"

2004-09-22T21:59:00.000Z

A Knight-Ridder reporter on NPR, describing British troops' public relations strategy in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

"From Maid to Bestselling Author"

2004-09-22T18:59:00.000Z

Baby Haldar worked as a maid in a home in the Indian capital, Delhi, before turning her attention to a more creative passion.

Her first novel Aalo Aandhari (Light and Darkness) was published last year in Hindi.

Since then, two editions of the book have been printed.

Recently the Bengali edition of her book was published by famous Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasreen.

Ms Haldar's fortunes changed when she ran away from an abusive marriage and came to Delhi to make a new beginning.

She started working as a maid to support her three children.

Among those she worked for was Professor Prabodh Kumar, the grandson of one of the greatest literary figures of the Hindi language, Prem Chand.

The professor noticed she spent a lot of time dusting his large collection of tomes, especially those written in Bengali.

"One day he caught me handling one of the books and asked me to read out the title," Ms Haldar told BBC Hindi Online's Alok Prakash Putul.

"I was a bit hesitant. The book was Taslima Nasreen's Amar Meyebela [My Girlhood]."

Professor Kumar gave her the book and asked her to read it when she had time.

"Later he gave me a notebook and pen and asked me to write my life story."

For Baby Haldar, who dropped out of school, putting pen to paper was a great trial - confronting the past that she had run away from.

She started writing after finishing her daily work and would continue late into the night.

She wrote about her uncaring father, the mother who abandoned her, her stepmother and the man double her age she was married to when she was just 13.

"Professor Kumar would read my writing, make corrections and photocopies.

"And I continued to write and write. I think I wrote for months."

The professor showed her writings to his friends who were moved by the memoirs.

He then translated her writing into Hindi and a Calcutta-based publisher decided to print it.

Ms Haldar has now completed her second book.

"My new book is about the sea change that took place in my life after Aalo Aandhari was printed.

"Earlier society just saw me as a maid and did not even look at me and then suddenly everyone was eager to talk to me."

Ms Haldar gets hundreds of letters every day.

Some are interested in translating the book into other languages and she has also received an offer to turn the book into a film.

Her life and the book have become a talking point in newspapers and on television.

Ms Haldar was taken aback by all the attention.

"I am not a writer, I am just a maid. I still cannot understand why my life story is causing such a stir," she says.

But one thing, she says, has changed.

"Earlier my children were ashamed to introduce me. But now they proudly say, 'My mother is a writer'. "

Technophile Alert!

2004-09-22T15:59:00.000Z

iDuck...where it's at...

"For those light-at-heart and animal lovers out there, Solid Alliance (Japan) has released a new i-Duck USB Memory Storage device. The i-Duck uses a USB 1.1 interface and has a maximum storage capacity of 256MB. When plugged into your computer’s USB port, the i-Duck will light up. Six different colors are available: pink, yellow, blue. Tangerine, Army, and Heart. A Six color set is also available."

Available here for 49 dollars each (for 16 MB), or 229 dollars for six ducks. They also come in 256 MB and 512 MB.

Instapunditry: v2.0, Part II

2004-09-22T03:59:00.000Z

After day two of Kerry v2.0, I am still impressed.

The inescapable fact of this election has always been that the election is about Iraq.

You can talk about health care, the economy, homeland security, et cetera until you are blue in the face, but in the end, it comes down to Iraq.

This is what the Democrats wanted, after all. By choosing such a blah candidate, someone who looks nice and speaks well and does not really stand out from the crowd (the anti-Dean), the Democrats seemed to say that Election 2004 is less Kerry vs. Bush than simply a referendum on Bush.

As many controversial things as Bush has done, Iraq is clearly the most controversial, the most far-reaching, and, quite simply, the biggest.

The Democrats thought that Kerry could simply say, I would do it differently, and people would objectively come to the conclusion that Kerry is better.

Clearly, this has not worked (and clearly, this was a horrible strategy).

It was ridiculous to think that an administration as good at PR and spin as the Bush Administration has been would be at a disadvantage in such a campaign.

Give Karl Rove a forum, and he is going to make Bush look good.

Now, Kerry finally has an issue (the same issue that enabled Dean to rise from nowhere) that he can win with.

Let's be honest.

Calling Kerry a "flip-flopper" has been a brilliant campaign strategy. But it is not really true, at least no more than for the average politician. Bush can match Kerry, flip-flop for flip-flop, inconsistency for inconsistency. Politicians change their minds. A lot.

What has really hurt Kerry has not been Bush calling him a flip-flopper, but rather Kerry's lack of real response.

Now, Bush can try to respond to Kerry's indictment of the war by calling him a flip-flopper (as he has already done), but it does not carry the weight that it did.

People have short memories.

If Kerry sticks to this message on Iraq, the Bush Campaign is going to have to change its tactics, because Kerry has a point. A good point.

Iraq is not going to get any better between now and November 2nd.

Saying that Kerry is changing is position, "twisting in the wind", is not going to work, because this time Kerry's right.

One final note: I'm curious if either candidate will say before the election that we should withdraw from Iraq.

On a personal level, I think it is a bad idea to withdraw now. Compelling cases can be made for both sides of the argument, however, and some days I waffle.

But I think many people would be receptive to a promise of a withdrawal, and I think that withdrawing from Iraq is soon to be a major debate in this country, either before or after the election.

Whichever candidate introduces the debate first might just win.

Get Your Buddhism

2004-09-22T00:59:00.000Z

This is not a bad introductory site on Buddhism, although it is all flash.

Of course, if you already know about Buddhism or do not care about Buddhism, then you will not like the site.

But that is your problem.

And if you are here, you are probably the type who would visit an interesting site on Buddhism.

Speaking of Mozilla

2004-09-21T21:59:00.000Z

I must say...

If you're not using Mozilla's new Firefox web browser, what are you thinking?

Do you enjoy IE?

There are a ton of reasons to switch (my personal favorite: tabbed browsing is really convenient).

Check it out.

Google Web Browser?

2004-09-21T18:59:00.000Z

Yesterday, in a story that is now making its way around the web, kottke.org suggested that Google is currently at work on an web browser, based on Mozilla, to challenge Internet Explorer.

It is definitely worth reading.

For Those of Us Who Need a Little Help Sometimes

2004-09-21T15:59:00.000Z

Have trouble with decisions?

"Decision Maker helps you with making hard decisions, you simply do not have the time to be bothered with. It just lets you sit back and say, "Ya know what, i don't care!' and watch as the computer will decide what you need to do. Don't be boggled down on thinking about things. Its time you just let it go."

[That's all ibid, by the way]

Umm...yeah. Click here.

[via bookofjoe]

Can He Keep It Up?

2004-09-21T12:59:00.001Z

As much as I enjoy the Ali G Show, the second season was a little flat, at least for Ali G. You smiled a lot, but there was none of the hysterical laughter from the first season.

I'm not sure if that is because the novelty of Ali G is wearing off, or he simply was not as funny.

On the other hand, Borat and Bruno got funnier.

From Slate:

Respek!

By Sam Schechner

The American version of Da Ali G Show recently wrapped up its second season on HBO, and, once again, a long list of prominent Americans have been embarrassed. Somehow, Sacha Baron Cohen, in the guise of a British would-be gangsta with a penchant for malapropisms and misunderstandings, managed to secure another passel of interviews with people like former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman (who conceded that, yes, whale feces "have got to be massive") and archconservative Patrick Buchanan (who said that Saddam Hussein "was using BLTs on the Kurds"). In one episode, Richard Kerr, a former deputy director of the CIA, found himself debating whether terrorists could drive a train into the White House.

How can so many supposedly media-savvy operators—even members of the intelligence community—still be so easily fooled? Don't these people have assistants with subscriptions to HBO or, at the very least, access to the outside world? These questions represent more than idle curiosity. Ali G managed just two seasons in Britain before being forced stateside to seek more gullible guests. A third season has yet to be scheduled here, and fans like me want to know if his techniques could possibly work one more time.

No one from Ali G would agree to speak about the show's methods, and even its former producers maintain a strict cult of silence about their work. But according to accounts from several people who have fallen for Baron Cohen's ruses—some of whom were too humiliated to go on the record—the come-on begins with a flattering letter sent to an unsuspecting target. Sam Donaldson says his letter was sent to his news assistant, bypassing ABC's more skeptical publicity department. Other guests are former officials or lone personalities without a dedicated PR staff to sniff out fakes. Buchanan, for example, handles his own press along with his wife, Shelly. "It all seemed very legitimate," he told me.

One source, who declined to be named, provided Slate with a copy (click on the thumbnail for an expanded view) of one such letter, which explains that an entity named Somerford Brooke Productions is creating a six-part series called "The Making of Modern America (working title)." Lauding the recipient's "unbridled reputation," the letter invites him to appear on a show that will "present issues in a fresh and innovative way that will engage young viewers." It says that the producers hope the show, ahem, "won't just be seen in the UK but world-wide."

In other words, it's all fastidiously accurate, but vague. The letter is so thorough that the URL in the e-mail address at the bottom actually goes to Somerford Brooke's fictitious one-page Web site. (Potential interviewees for Baron Cohen's libidinous Kazakh persona, Borat, say they have been contacted by United World Television, which maintains a suspiciously similar site.) The producers have even gone to the trouble to make sure Somerford Brooke and their other fronts are officially registered companies—all at the same address that houses FremantleMedia, the parent of TalkbackThames, which produced Da Ali G Show for HBO and Britain's Channel 4. Repeated voice mails left with the letter's purported author, Saeeda Khanum, went unanswered; one person reached at Talkback who had heard of her said, uncomfortably, that he hadn't seen her in months. "I don't know anything, mate."

While some of Ali G's marks agree to the interviews immediately ("I popped right away," Donaldson confessed), others take more massaging. One person who handles press for a political celebrity featured in the first U.S. season ("It does not reflect well on my professionalism to have been fooled") said that he turned down repeated entreaties for an interview. Only when a MSNBC producer vouched for "United World Productions" did he finally relent, to his regret. "We truly left there thinking he was the stupidest person ever," he said of Ali G. "I was very contentious."

That's why, even before the interviews begin, Ali G's producers start making excuses. As the guest signs a weighty but standard-looking release, producers explain that they have a rather unorthodox host, a supposed "British rap star" who, they assure, is very popular with the young-adult target audience. Then Baron Cohen bounds into the room, already in character, and the cameras start rolling. "I don't discriminate on the basis of clothing, as long as there is some and it isn't too dirty," Donaldson says of his decision to continue at that point.

But while producers can send out fake letters from official-sounding companies more or less indefinitely, the number of people who will stick around when this Hilfiger-suited oaf walks on camera is diminishing rapidly. That's why Ali G was forced to leave Britain in the first place. "[T]he character had reached such a saturation point that everybody knew who Ali G was, from eight-year-olds to 80-year-olds," the series' co-creator, Dan Mazer, told the BBC in 2003.

It's unlikely that Ali G himself can survive even a fraction of that exposure again. While The Daily Show, for example, manages to mine humor from fake-news features whose interviewees who are at least somewhat in on the joke, Ali G relies on his victims' reluctance to challenge his intellectual credentials or Brit-hop patois. The joke won't work when they know he's a fiction. The only way to save Ali may be to send him even further afield—to find yet another country as pompous and credulous as America. But that's a tall order.

More likely is a larger role for Baron Cohen's two other, often funnier, personae: Borat and campy Austrian fashion Nazi, Bruno. Both are too outlandish to score megawatt guests but make up for it by goading their charges into more outrageously offensive behavior. (Borat got a country and western bar to sing along as he belted, "Throw the Jew down the well/ So my country can be free," which ranked among the year's most caustically funny moments in television.)

There are hints that the show may indeed be headed in that direction. "The Borat character still has loads of life left in him, possibly more than Ali," Mazer told the Unofficial Borat Homepage last year, well before shooting the second U.S. season. Whether he still feels that way now is anyone's guess—his representatives would not return phone calls. But, as a fan, I can't help but hang on something else he said in that interview: "Borat will be back and he will loom large once more."

Great Lines in Film History

2004-09-21T03:59:00.000Z

"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democarcy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

iPod in Color

2004-09-21T00:59:00.000Z

Previously, if you didn't want your iPod to be vanilla white, you needed to get a skin.

You can now get your iPod in color, rather than than the standard white, and do away with the skins entirely (although a skin does help to protect the iPod).

Choose from 20 different colors, such as lilac...

...or envy...

...or ferrari...

Or, if you already have a white iPod but need a new skin, how about one that glows in the dark?

johnkerry v2.0

2004-09-20T21:59:00.000Z

Kerry is getting better.

Here is what he had to say today at NYU.

"The administration told us we’d be greeted as liberators. They were wrong.

They told us not to worry about looting or the sorry state of Iraq's infrastructure. They were wrong.

They told us we had enough troops to provide security and stability, defeat the insurgents, guard the borders and secure the arms depots. They were wrong.

They told us we could rely on exiles like Ahmed Chalabi to build political legitimacy. They were wrong.

They told us we would quickly restore an Iraqi civil service to run the country and a police force and army to secure it. They were wrong.

In Iraq, this administration has consistently over-promised and under-performed. This policy has been plagued by a lack of planning, an absence of candor, arrogance and outright incompetence. And the President has held no one accountable, including himself.

In fact, the only officials who lost their jobs over Iraq were the ones who told the truth."

Not a bad speech.

Audio Bytes

2004-09-20T18:59:00.000Z

I have mixed feelings regarding Toni Morrison, but she certainly is a fabulous writer.

She recently gave an interview on NPR about her childhood and the effect it has had on her writing.

World Airport Guide

2004-09-20T15:59:00.000Z

Here's a guide to most major world airports, with descriptions and links.

1994 Redux?

2004-09-20T12:59:00.000Z

It will be interesting to see how Japanese fans react to the Japan's baseball strike.

Certainly, the players have a made a good move in appealing to the fans. They saw what happened in the United States in 1994, and how difficult it has been for the MLB to regain its fan base.

Then again, unlike his American counterpart, Japan's average player does not make over 2.5 million dollars.

Japan's baseball players woo fans

The strike - the first in the 70-year history of baseball in Japan - is over management plans to merge two clubs, Orix Bluewave and Kintetsu Buffaloes.

Such a merger could cause job losses, but the clubs' owners say it is the only way to keep the teams in business.

Baseball, which was introduced from the US, is keenly followed in Japan, despite a recent drop in popularity.

All games were called off in the weekend as part of the strike.

The players say they will keep up their action until the club managers abandon their plan to merge the two teams, which have run into financial trouble.

The players have also now taken their case to the fans, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Tokyo.

There are many problems afflicting Japanese baseball, our correspondent says.

They includes competition from the growing popularity of football, unimaginative management by the big corporations who own the teams and the loss of star players to the more glamorous American leagues, including Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui.

Attendance at matches and vital broadcasting fees are falling, but there is no consensus yet on how to turn around the sport's dwindling fortunes, he says.

The players' union is particularly worried that if the merger goes ahead, it could prompt the owners of other loss-making teams to follow suit.

It could also force the restructuring of Japan's current playing arrangements, where teams compete in two leagues of six teams each.

Get Your Horse Head

2004-09-20T03:59:00.000Z

Think you're the Godfather?

Or, at the very least, want to act like the Godfather?

Buy a horse head and send a message to your enemies.

The Next Pope

2004-09-20T00:59:00.000Z

Want to place a bet on who will be the next to ascend the Papacy?

Odds start at 2-1.

New Everest Record

2004-09-19T21:59:00.000Z

The BBC reports that Pemba Dorje Sherpa's recent ascent of Mount Everest in a positively freakish eight hours and 10 minutes has been confirmed as the fastest on record.

This time shatters the previous record of 10 hours and 56 minutes, which is still pretty freakish.

Apparently, a group of climbers (including the previous record holder) had doubted Pemba Dorje Sherpa's claim. The Nepalese Tourism Ministry looked into their complaint, but ultimately upheld the new record.

The critics, however, are not convinced.

Controversy!

List of Coalition Troops Killed in Iraq

2004-09-19T18:59:00.000Z

CNN maintains a listing of all the US and allied troops killed in Iraq.

It's here.