drat fink

hail hail

im really enjoying this taxi marathon on wpix. i watched a bunch last night and came across it this morning. meet the press be damned! i dont think ive seen a significant number of episodes since the eighties. they really hold up well.

no exit

wall cam

magilla guerrilla

"It is a well-known and widely accepted fact that, during wartime, news companies and governmental representatives fuse their voices together into one univocal beam of support for the national military objective. And, while, for many, this is a vital aspect of institutional patriotism, it is also a very dangerous and troubling reality. For, if the news media have abandoned their responsibility to objectively inform the population, then our concept of a democracy (which is founded on the ability for all citizens to choose their nation's destiny based on a full spectrum of information) is in desperate peril."

man bites dog

this story made me think of two things. first, slow news week. second, reminds me of bin laden. you train a dog to attack and then let it loose who knows whats going to happen.

shopportunities

When the Berlin Wall fell, it was supposed to have buried this epic narrative in its rubble. This was capitalism’s decisive victory. Ideology is dead—let’s go shopping. The end-of-history theory was understandably infuriating to those whose sweeping ideas lost the gladiatorial battles, whether it was global communism, or, in bin Laden’s case, an imperialist version of Islam. What is becoming clear post-September 11, however, is that history’s end also turned out to be a hollow victory for the U.S. cold warriors. Since 1989, many of them have missed their epic narrative as if it were a lost limb. Without ideology, shopping was just shopping.

stacked deck

the mets are reportedly on the verge of another series of player moves which on paper gives them their most potent lineup ever. this is not to say that it will instantly be their best team. historically the mets have won with pitching which suits their ballpark and their wallet. but i would like to think the mets ownership (which is a 50-50 tug of war between two wealthy old men) would want to field an exceptional lineup when they convince us of the need for a new stadium. at least it would make it seem like they might be completely committed to winning rather than just finding a way to fleece the taxpayers.

rf) roger cedeno
3b) edgardo alfonzo
2b) roberto alomar
C) mike piazza
lf) juan gonzalez
1b) mo vaughn
cf) jay payton
ss) rey ordonez

(actually an unlikely lineup)

i started this post before the vaughn deal was finished. but now thats completed and all eyes turn to acquiring gonzalez and working on the starting pitching. if everything came to pass, then they would have three future hall of fame players still in their prime in the middle of the batting order along with two all-star quality players and the best fielding shortstop in baseball and the best basestealer at the top of the lineup. enough to make any mets fan drool and enough to make steinbrenner worry about who will dominate the backpages of the tabloids. it is true, however, that the texas rangers and cleveland indians have had powerhouse lineups in recent years but have floundered because of weaker pitching staffs. whatever the outcome, i hope the season is half as exciting (it never is) as this offseason has been.

the crux

Arthur Miller, America's greatest living playwright, will speak out against the Bush administration for abusing civil rights, in a BBC interview to be broadcast on Christmas Day

hiding in plains sites

Inside Al Qaeda's Secret World

songs for the season

The Hotline Carols are presented without attribution of any kind. We claim absolutely no credit for them whatsoever, except for those you like. The Hotline is an equal-opportunity publisher, providing holiday sneer regardles of party. This is an unusual year, and some of this year's carols will include a more serious tone than in past years. But even amid our grieving, we firmly believe there should be room for levity as well as reverence.

merry xmess

one thing we can all wish for during this and every other season is for peace and understanding. but like so many other gifts that come up short i will settle for the ineptitude of terrorists who light fuses on planes with matches. apparently the idea of using a lighter while in the privacy of the bathroom never occured to him and we are all the better for it. but i can only wonder what kind of "malfunction" this plane would have encounter had it been blown up. theres a merry dose of cynicism for you to ring in the holidays.

...and a soccer game broke out

British and German soldiers made history in 1914 when they stopped shooting and started to sing carols and play football together. Malcolm Brown on one of the most heartening Christmas stories of modern times.

id me

Applied Digital Solutions Introduces Verichip, a Miniaturized, Implantable Identification Device With a Variety of Medical, Security and Emergency Applications

your # is up

wilco is getting alot of buzz for a numbers station inspired album called 'yankee hotel foxtrot'.

remember when

hotlines 2001 retrospecks

googleyes

less drat, more fink

a short story

leer, jet.

uprooted

dr morse's indian root pills

history puffs

911 redux

survivor fallout

the real thing

ron rosenbaum on john walker and the quest for authenticity

just another weblog

plastic returns

back from the dead

mumia returns

green go the blushes

i think we all know whats important news from yesterday

enronic

fortune looks at the enron debacle

smell my finger

Drug-sniffing dog prowling BART cars
13 arrests on trains on first two nights

same old song

"The fate of Frank Olson, long stamped 'Top Secret,' was a dark and cautionary tale of the Cold War. On November 19, 1953, Olson, a 43-year-old scientist at Fort Detrick, had joined other government researchers at Deep Creek Lodge in Western Maryland. There, an unseen hand had slipped 70 micrograms of LSD into his glass of Cointreau and the glasses of others. The meeting soon degenerated into hours of drug-induced hilarity. But days after, Olson was said to be sullen and withdrawn. A government official had escorted him to New York to 'take care of him'-words his son Eric would later use with grim irony. Shortly after 2:30 on the morning of November 28, 1953, Olson's body was discovered, bloodied and broken, on the pavement of Manhattan's Seventh Avenue, clothed only in underpants and a T-shirt.The government asked the family to believe that he had hurled himself through a closed window on the 10th floor of the Statler Hotel, while a government scientist assigned to keep an eye on him had slept in the next bed."

war birds

seymour hersh on the iraq hawks

cynic schism

"Understanding the difference between critique and cynicism -- and the difference between hope and optimism -- is crucial to the future of any struggle against injustice. At this moment in history, those struggles must not only be about trying to win changes in policies but also about the reinvigoration of public life -- a call for participation, for politics, for radical citizenship in reactionary times."

chutzpah award

john walkers lawyers website is mofo.com.

df overcast

promising keepers
smarting cards
metablogging
john dean on samuel mudd
enrongate

at a theatre near you

just around the corner (so to speak)

ten franca notes

classics of the Lingua Franca canon

ny sees

We asked 50 New Yorkers to write on their Sept. 10, and were amazed at their tenderness and wit. We were gratified to have Tom Wolfe write on the city that changed. Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg sketches his plans for the future of New York City.

We live in a four-dimensional city, where time and space make their own rules. This has never been clearer than this year, when so many lives were stolen from us but left a transcending legacy. As E.B. White wrote in Here Is New York, "this riddle in steel and stone is at once the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of non-violence, of racial brotherhood."

At the end of this year, in this aching holiday season, we are full of gratitude for the souls we loved; their exuberant faith makes New York a place where memory is the bedrock, ambition the air, intuition and courage the reasons to stay, forever.

you ought to be in....

chinese director offers role to jenna bush

stroker ace

the strokes cd was the top seller at other music in 2001.

report cards

american scientists anthrax report
twa flight 800 evidence destroyed

bottoms up

ad revenues got you down? then, liquor up!

ballpark frankness

getting a jump on predictions -- the mets and yankees are going to be good.

lindhzer torte

more armchair psychologizing from the "liberal" media about the character of a certain family in a certain "liberal" county in california. lets see did we miss anything. we made snide comments about hiphop, alternative schooling, the beatles. is there anyway to blame organic farming? maybe they would like us to carpet bomb the area and start again with only morally upstanding families. i know of some conservative jews who always seem to be anxious to repopulate "cleansed" areas. and those bushes are an upstanding lot. they could build a giant castle and lord over everbody in the county. then the entire community (and ultimately the world) could bask in the glow emanating from their beknighted character.

criminy

America's New War: A Progress Report
The Nonsense Mantras of Our Times
fig newton: not a smart cookie
FBI Confirms 'Magic Lantern' Project Exists

centimes

borking tribunalism
Three small clicks for man, a giant leap for radio
nobel prize at 100
end is near for the french franc

doom raiders

In 27 Cities, U.S. Carries Out Raids in Software Piracy Case

the big test

malcolm gladwell on stanley kaplan

living room

salon pilloried again

new time religion

detailed survey of religious affiliation in america

hit man

robert fisk meets afghani fists with his face but turns the other cheek.

rock and a hardplace

sylvester stallone on the making of Rocky

right hand man

The Right Still Has Religion

greek to me

Gwyneth Paltrow has just signed on to produce "The Secret History," Donna Tartt's best-selling debut novel about snobbish classics majors at a Vermont college who kill a chicken farmer in a Dionysian rite.

al-done?

An Anti-Taliban Commander Says bin Laden's Top Aide Is Dead

shields and croft

Justice Dept. Bars Use of Gun Checks in Terror Inquiry

fly high friedbird

tom friedmans moment in the sun

gone fishing

AOL Time Warner Chief Executive to Retire

futurama

2011

reagan redux

the people that came up with That 70s Show have come up with a groundbreaking new concept for a tv sitcom. its called That 80s Show.

df starlight express

its pat...buchanan
saint george...bush
whats the frequency, kenneth...lay
alexander the great...cockburn
how nixon adversely impacted supreme court nominations
john dean on presidential secrecy
navy has best record creating new weapons
why washington dc will one day have a baseball team

heil myself

A new book claims Hitler was a closet case.

west of the atlantic

atlantic monthly unearths four perspectives on new york city from their voluminous annals.

df world

gore (vidal) on gore (election)
(laurence) tribe on (military) tribunals
(jon lee) anderson on surrender (in kunduz)
(nytimes) mag on (wes) anderson

powder keg

"The dry powder used in the anthrax attacks is virtually indistinguishable in critical technical respects from that produced by the United States military before it shut down its biowarfare program, according to federal scientists and a report prepared for a military contractor."

pound foolish

"The policy of using political Islam as an anti-Communist tool was a crucial reason why so much of the Muslim world came to be dominated by stagnant, undemocratic but stable (so it seemed) and adequately pro-Western governments, on one hand, and the traditional forces of political Islam, reconfigured for the latter half of the 20th century, on the other. The crowning achievement of such a policy was the defeat of the modernizing alternative: those movements that hoped to avoid aligning with either the Soviet Union or the United States; to develop their societies along secular lines by, ideally, ever more democratic means; and to substitute nationalism for colonial humility and Islamic traditionalism."

comfy cozy

old brown shoe
long long long
for you blue
only a northern song
savoy truffle
think for yourself
something
while my guitar gently weeps
here comes the sun

center of attention

The Rabbi and the Centerfold

opinionadir

Among the isolated, out-of-step losers who dare open their mouths to mutter "doubts" about America's military campaign in Afghanistan, you will sometimes hear the traitorous comment: "This war is just about oil."

We here at the Global Eye take stern exception to such cynical tommyrot. No one who has made a clear and dispassionate assessment of the situation in the region could possibly say the new Afghan war is "just about oil."

It's also about drugs.

girls who wear glasses

"Nowadays, they do. Whether it’s Ted Koppel being made by the Iranian hostage crisis or Arthur Kent turning into the “Scud Stud” during the Gulf War, historic news stories have become the journalistic fast track to celebrity. And this happens so routinely that the search for the new media star is automatically built into coverage of the events themselves. Within hours of the attack on the World Trade Center, you could already hear people asking, “Who’s going to be made by this one?"

making copy

Will the FBI's most-wanted terrorist have his place in Time as the magazine's Man of the Year?