More travel pics

Pictures of a warm spring day in NYC.

St Patrick's Day dinner at a diner in Queens.

Driving up the Taconic State Parkway and through the Berkshires into Great Barrington on the way to Boston.

When I was a kid we used to ski at Butternut Basin.

Dave Winer posted some pictures from his cross-country stretch from NYC to Boston.  I learned to ski at Butternut Basin (and Otis Ridge, just down the road) which is also home to Berkfest, an awesome music festival that I'm hoping to make it to this coming summer.  I had a lot of friends (and one very dear one in particular) that went to school in Great Barrington.  Its a beautiful part of the country, and one I could see myself retiring to someday. 

Permalink  comment []  

Permalink  comment []  

Some conflicting reports here: Some rumors (from al-Jazeera) report that Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz has fled to Turkey and defected. (No links yet that I can find. Source is U.S. Army.) But another report on Al Bawaba reports that he was caught trying to enter Iraqi Kurdistan and shot dead.

The war coverage is starting.  I'm watching the following blogs for war news.  You may want to also.

• Back to Iraq 2.0
• Kevin Sites Blog
• CSMonitor.com | Assignment: Kuwait
• Where is Raed?

[updated: never mind that Tariq Aziz thing.  He still hates us.]

Funny how it goes: The onetime Mr. Monkey Business is now addressing the gravest issues in America before rapt audiences. He is wholly immersed in this terrifying national hour, head down as he ambles from his podium to sustained applause at U-Va.'s Caplin Pavilion.

Hart's audiences are at once inspired and shell-shocked. He is seizing on the current peril as a call to national duty. "We are all citizen-soldiers now," he says. "When the nation is attacked, Tom Ridge is not going to save you." Local police and fire and health care workers will, or at least try. And your neighbors will. He evinces the white-hot eagerness of a man prepared to lead, if called.

He is getting good reviews and decent crowds -- about 140 on this snowy afternoon. At 66, Hart's big mane of hair has gone wispy gray, with feathers of white over his ears (he looks like a cloud in a school play). Several people, most of them law students, approach him after the speech. As he meets a cluster of students, answering a question about civil liberties, and one about the military's role in homeland security, and one on his fledgling presidential campaign, he is actually beaming. And Hart, as a general rule, has never been a beamer.

A great piece on Senator Hart in the Post.  Hart gives his thoughts on politicing, his past, and fear.

[via Political Wire]