Saturday, September 21, 2002

I live in a city. This is new for me. I grew up in the suburbs, went to college in a college town in rural Ohio, then lived just on the border of one of the richest suburbs in the Boston area. Now? Now I live in a city, and not a nice, trendy city like Cambridge or Berkeley. Nope, Lowell's a run-down city. It's the original American mill town, and it's not doing well any more. No surprise, really. I just went walking, wandered a few miles, and realized that I'm in a very, very different world than I'm used to. I'm not trying to sound snobby - it's just strange for a white boy from the 'burbs to walk past Spanish-language Pentecostal churches and Cambodian restaurants just down the street from his apartment...

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Israel Tells the U.S. It Will Retaliate if Attacked by Iraq [New York Times: International News] This is the greatest news in years. Ok, it's not. It's actually horrible - this guarantees that Saddam will throw a couple missiles in the general direction of Tel Aviv, just to get Israel's attention. I don't even want to think about what'll happen after that...
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Hewitt denies Prince Harry link. Former cavalry officer James Hewitt speaks out in a Sunday newspaper to dispel rumours that he is Prince Harry's father. [BBC News | UK] "St James's Palace declined to comment on Hewitt's comments." I'm sure they just had to ask, just on the off chance that someone official would have something to say, but would anyone seriously expect them to? The friggin' Royal family having an official response to discussion of Princy Harry's legitimacy? Rrrright. =)

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I just got some spam trying to get me to buy Christian audiobooks. Spam really frightens me sometimes.
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Well, Four Feathers wasn't what I'd call *good*, but it surely wasn't the worst way to spend two hours. It was decent matinee fodder - which is the case with almost every movie I see these days.
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Quick: 10 favorite rock songs, no particular order. "She's a Rainbow", the Rolling Stones "Rock 'n Roll Nigger", Patti Smith "It Ain't Me Babe", Bob Dylan "Shine a Light", the Rolling Stones "Magnificent Seven", the Clash "Ball and Chain", Social Distortion "Swastika Eyes", Primal Scream "A Day In The Life", the Beatles "Mysterious Ways", U2 "Burn Hollywood Burn", Public Enemy Off to go watch bad movies, well, at least one: Four Feathers. I've got a period picture/war movie fixation.

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Want A Date? We All Cal With ICal. Web designer Patrick Crowley may have stumbled on the Web's next killer app. He just launched a website for sharing calendars using Apple's new calendaring program, iCal. Could Web calendars be the next big thing? By Leander Kahney. [Wired News] Too many cool things are only available for Macs. But too many cool games are only available for Windows. I guess I just need both...

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Information About Otters. Otters are lovable and cute, everybody knows this. But did you know that otters can use tools regularly in the finding and eating of food? There's a world of information available at your fingertips concerning sea otters, not to mention a Wild Ottercam. So dig in! [kuro5hin.org] ...too...cute...for...words... Damn, I'm single now - I should be invulnerable to cute animals. But otters...they still get me. I'm a sucker for small furry things that seem kinda human - otters, monkeys, lemurs. Expressive faces make them even more dangerous. I swear, if a gang of lemurs attacked me, I'd be too busy being cuted out to defend myself.

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posted by insomnia_lj at September 21 8:18 AM. Church of Scientology rewrites history. Archive.org, a site which archives the Internet for historical purposes, has been forced to block ALL archived material for Xenu.net, which contains "copyrighted" church information. The DMCA requires an immediate takedown of this kind of content, but it can be restored rapidly if the content owner (xenu.net? Archive.org?) appeals the decision and decides to fight the ruling. If so, it could be the undoing of the CoS, whose copyrights are highly suspect. Until now, the cost of fighting the CoS has forced defendants to settle, but there are good people out there who might see this as the perfect opportunity to act. Anyone up for a little pro bono work?! [MetaFilter] I will personally pledge $100 to any group that fights the Scientologists on this. These people are f'n madmen and need to be stopped - they've bullied the freakin' US government into standing up for the Scientologists against Germany - I forget the exact situation, but it culminated in Travolta on the White House lawn. L. Ron Hubbard was a lousy, two-bit sci-fi pulp "writer" who happened to realize that he could scam some idiots. Now these people are actually treated like a legitimate religion. Bullshit.

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House Democrats form anti-war coalition. A group of 19 House Democrats yesterday pledged to build a congressional coalition to oppose a U.S. military attack on Iraq. "Unilateral military action by the United States against Iraq is unjustified, unwarranted and illegal," said Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, who predicted "dozens" more Democrats would join their group in coming days to oppose the Bush administration's plan for an attack. "The administration has failed to make the case that Iraq poses an imminent or immediate threat to the United States." [Blog Left: Critical Interventions] yay! I knew there'd be a couple doves left in the Democratic party.

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Iraq warns against fresh UN resolution. Baghdad says it will not co-operate with any new Security Council resolutions¸ having offered to allow weapons inspectors to return. [BBC News | Front Page] Which, I guess, is evidence supporting the "kill 'em all!" school of thought: what is needed is a new resolution allowing for armed escorts for the inspectors, so they'd have the ability to blast through closed doors, as it were. This won't be allowed to happen - if Saddam hadn't shot it down, Bush would have found a way to do so.

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In a followup on the crazy baseball beating story I posted yesterday, King Kaufman has made a plea that baseball not turn the ballparks into fortresses. The best part was this throwaway line: "Fortunately for the shirtless pair, the first Kansas City player to reach them was Neifi Perez, who doesn't hit much." He's right - Neifi doesn't hit much at all.
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