February 3, 2003

Re-thinking the Iraq/al-Qaeda connection

In what might be a preview of Secretary of State Powell's address to the United Nations tomorrow, Jeffrey Goldberg takes a look at how the Intelligence Community is re-thinking it's analysis of the Iraq/al-Qaeda connection.

Excerpt:
James Woolsey, who served as President Clinton's first C.I.A. director, said that it is now illogical to doubt the notion that Saddam collaborates with Islamist terrorism, and that he would provide chemical or biological weapons to Al Qaeda. "At Salman Pak"-a training camp near Baghdad-"we know there were Islamist terrorists training to hijack airplanes in groups of four or five with short knives," Woolsey told me. "I mean, hello? If we had seen after December 7, 1941, a fake American battleship in a lake in northern Italy, and a group of Asian pilots training there, would we have said, 'Well, you can't prove that they were Japanese'?"
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 11:53 PM PST - 69 comments

John Lennon Collection

Looking for a nursery theme? Try the John Lennon Collection & John Lennon Musical Parade. These products are based on his drawings of stylized animals. Imagine what Yoko Ono and the Lennon Estate come up with next.
posted by riffola at 11:42 PM PST - 13 comments

Brion Gysin

Brion Gysin - He played a powerful role in the work of William Burroughs, he sought to destroy language, and he may have killed Kurt Cobain, so why doesn't anybody know who he is?
posted by cachilders at 10:49 PM PST - 9 comments

Motorists (Mom's driving their kids to school) ignored girls lying on street in blood after fatal hit-run !!!

Motorists (Mom's and Dad's driving their own kids to schools) ignored little girls lying on street in blood after fatal hit-and-run !!! (Palo Alto, California)

Tom Malzbender can forgive the Palo Alto teenager Megan Joelle Coughran (18-year-old Palo Alto High School senior and a church's day care worker) who allegedly struck and killed his 6-year-old daughter and injured another girl before his eyes, then drove off....

What Malzbender can't forgive are the two motorists behind the hit-and-run driver Tuesday morning, the ones he watched drive past two bloody, injured girls by the side of a narrow road near his house.
"That is (messed) up," Malzbender said. "Who knows. Maybe I could have put Amy in the back of one of their cars and taken her to the emergency room."

1. Now, what the hell is wrong with these people ? (if you ask me they all deserve a long long jail time)
2. Why people don't pay attention when they drive ? (especially when you see pedestrians or cyclists !)
3. Latest Hit-and-run (or kill-and-ignore) accidents in the Bay Area Jan 28th, Jan 23rd, Jan 15th, Oct 30th, Oct 22
posted by bureaustyle at 10:30 PM PST - 39 comments

Fire in the Sky

Fire in the Sky.
Perhaps you saw moonwalk veteran astronaut Buzz Aldrin attempt on NBC to read a poem he received in e-mail Saturday, and falter in tears. It was actually lyrics to the Jordin Kare song "Fire in the Sky," a tribute to manned space exploration:
Prometheus, they say, brought God's fire down to man.
And we've caught it, tamed it, trained it since our history began.
Now we're going back to heaven just to look him in the eye,
and there's a thunder 'cross the land, and a fire in the sky

[via Space.com]
posted by Tubes at 9:32 PM PST - 7 comments

'Da Serial Killer

Shortly after Jack The Ripper retired, a man named Henry Holmes moved to Chicago. Using insurance fraud money, in 1892 he built an elaborate mansion with over 60 rooms. This mansion, which became known as The Murder Castle, was perhaps the first extraordinary building in a city that has become known for its architecture, from Frank Lloyd Wright to the Sears tower. In his home, which he ran as a hotel for the unfortunate traveler, Holmes murderd & disposed of as many as 200 victims over the course of the next four years... (more inside)
posted by jonson at 9:15 PM PST - 26 comments

What's a couple of heroes, more or less?!

Sure, they died for their country, but who's counting?! ABC has a webpage for US personnel who have died during the war on terror, but it shows only 41 have casualties. Admittedly, they have yet to update their webpage after the latest casualties, but even if they did, they would still be wrong. CNN recently said that 47 US personnel have died in Operation Enduring Freedom. That number too is wrong.

To tell the truth, I couldn't find a single story on any major news website that lists all of the US personnel who have died in operation Enduring Freedom, but these sites appear to be the closest. Neither are fully accurate, however.

A beer on me to the first person who can tell me exactly how many US personnel have died (post 9/11) as a part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Search the web. Find the names. Compare lists. Extra points to anyone who can offer up some compelling reasons why our media overlords can't keep score. Do we want to know these people's names? Does it matter?!
posted by insomnia_lj at 6:08 PM PST - 50 comments

Smokin' Dave's Taxicab Diaries

Smokin' Dave is the real deal, gents. Smoking like a rusty chainsaw while pulling his Zebra up to the A&P on the corner of Royal and St. Peter in the French Quarter. Holding forth to a drunken Japanese businessman. Smokin' Dave is so macho, he sneers in his sleep.
posted by son_of_minya at 4:10 PM PST - 7 comments

Peterme calls it quits

The inventor of the term blog is giving up his verb. "I've gotta do something else with this site," says Peter Merholz, who began one of the first 25 weblogs in May 1998. "More essays. No blogging."
posted by rcade at 3:52 PM PST - 25 comments

Please ignore the painting behind the curtain.

Please ignore the painting behind the curtain. In a move that mirrors the covering of the bare-breasted Spirit of Justice statue at the Justice Department last January, the U.N. installed a curtain to hide Picasso's anti-war masterpiece Guernica last week.
posted by MegoSteve at 3:44 PM PST - 38 comments

Oh Courtney, You So Crazy

Courtney's "spread" in the upcoming Q Magazine really proves that she has a knack for publicity. Page two is here and here's the third page. NSFW. Not safe for anywhere, really.
posted by aeiou at 3:40 PM PST - 81 comments

Rent My Chest

RentMyChest.com, through an arrangement with Geek Stud Magazine, offers "bustomers" the opportunity to advertise on Chris Perillo's chest for the low, low price of $20.00. Arrangements may be made for a female chest for just $2000. Operators standing by!!!
[via Doc.]
posted by me3dia at 2:30 PM PST - 8 comments

Buddy Holley

The Day the Music Died...It was February 3, 1959 that Buddy Holley, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash. You need look no further to find one of the true icons of rock and roll than Buddy Holley. Originally scheduled to fly, Waylon Jennings gave his seat to an ailing Big Bopper. When Holly learned that Jennings wasn't going to fly, he said, "Well, I hope your old bus freezes up." Jennings responded, "Well, I hope your plane crashes." This friendly banter of friends would haunt Jennings for years. And can anyone really decipher Don McLeans' "American Pie"? More.
posted by Mack Twain at 2:12 PM PST - 23 comments

Hey! You forgot your cheque!

Royalties Reunited allows artists to collect the royalties from British radio stations, pub jukeboxes, restaurants, gyms and linedancing clubs that "their people" have forgotten to claim. DJ Shadow is there - that's a little money. Nobukazu Takemura is there - that's less money. But the one that surprises me appears after a search for "stupid" - a rather famous actress has failed to collect for her Christmas #1 megahit. I believe we're talking about a lot of money. Are you going to tell her or should I?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 1:34 PM PST - 4 comments

Wall of trouble?

Phil Spector arrested, booked for investigation of murder. via Drudge
posted by 111 at 12:37 PM PST - 31 comments

Voices From the Trading Post

Voices from the Trading Post. You know, you can get a job anywhere, but this is not just a place to make a living. This is a way of life. Life on the Navajo reservation in the 19th and 20th century, in the words of the traders themselves (text and sound).
posted by gottabefunky at 11:57 AM PST - 3 comments

Dead Puppies

How much money would it take for you to kill a puppy with your bare hands? (Quicktime.)
posted by tweebiscuit at 11:25 AM PST - 103 comments

Tour Egypt from the comfort of your home or office

Tour Egypt. "Egypt is an exciting country, both for its antiquities, and modern high culture. Tour Egypt is an Egypt guide with over 10,000 pages of information about every aspect of travel, ancient and modern Egypt." Two of my favorite links are the Hieroglyph Converter and Ikhernofret's Description of the Osiris Passion Play at Abydos. The current feature is about the Monastery of Jeremiah at Saqqara . Actually, quite a nice resource.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:15 AM PST - 5 comments

Confronting Empire

Confronting Empire

"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

Arundhati Roy in her inimitable style speaking at Life After Capitalism at the World Social Forum, 2003, Porto Alegre, Brazil, January 27, 2003, organised by Znet.
posted by nofundy at 11:04 AM PST - 53 comments

Shuttle Achille's Hell ?

Shuttle "Achille's Hell" According to this article, Shuttle has one. Curiously it's in the area in which that piece of insulation hit during launch.Were the astronauts warned ? Did they do some space walk to see what was wrong ? I would stop my car to go out and see if I heard a loud "thump" coming from somewhere.
posted by elpapacito at 11:04 AM PST - 38 comments

aw, look. it even has a little pointless bandaid.

it's getting hot in here... in miniature.
posted by grabbingsand at 10:57 AM PST - 10 comments

Trophy Boys

It's kind of weird how people in East Texas seem to have to "pose" with the debris, like it's a dead deer or a fishing trophy...
posted by sparky at 10:12 AM PST - 53 comments

Godspeed, Dr. Kalpana Chawla.

Godspeed, Dr. Kalpana Chawla. But how will India replace a girl like you? In Karnal, India, where this fallen Columbia astronaut was born, it is rarer -- and more dangerous -- to be a female fetus than a real live girl space shuttle jock. Statistics suggest that the state has taken the cruel art of sex selection, in which female fetuses are aborted, to new heights. Among children under 6, it has 820 girls for every 1,000 boys according to the 2001 census. (NY Times link)
posted by jellybuzz at 9:47 AM PST - 19 comments

sxsw web awards

ladies gents and babies, the 2003 sxsw web awards finalists have been announced
posted by Peter H at 9:21 AM PST - 15 comments

Iron Scribe

Live from Ballpoint Stadium, it's Iron Scribe.
posted by staggernation at 8:57 AM PST - 3 comments

What's a blog? Where's it goin'?

3 Feb '03 Word of the Day: Blog. Pronunciation: [blahg] Definition 1: A clipping of "weblog," blog is internet jargon for what is basically an online journal or diary. Yes, blogs are going mainstream. Will businesses discover uses for blogs & blog software? Will (mobile-phone) "moblogging" catch on? This link says ...the first Web logs consisted largely of links to sites on the Internet that the author found interesting. Early bloggers were presurfing the Web for people, in a sense [sound familiar?]. About 1999, as free software came on the scene -- making it easy to create Web logs -- the content began to shift. Blogs became more personal, less link-driven. But what is a blog to you? And what is the future of the "blogosphere"?
posted by Shane at 7:34 AM PST - 25 comments

american taliban

american taliban perhaps utah could do some sort of exchange with out of work minders in kandahar? nytimes link
posted by specialk420 at 6:41 AM PST - 44 comments

Anti-war, anti-blogging...?

Anti-war and the Internet John Perry Barlow of the EFF talks about online activism and anti-war feeling: "Actually I'm discouraged with the role of the Internet in the antiwar movement. Because so far what I see happening is that cyberspace is a great place for everybody to declaim. There are a million virtual streetcorners with a million lonely pamphleteers on them, all of them decrying the war and not actually coming together in any organized fashion to oppose it." Easy to read this as referring to blogs. People shout and scream in their journals, but where is the organised anti-war effort? Is the great hope and potential of the Internet to connect people and create movements floundering when it comes to one of the most serious issues facing us today?
posted by humuhumu at 4:02 AM PST - 30 comments

Funny Latin Phrases

Quanto putas mihi stare hoc conclave ? That's "How many prostitutes does it take to change a lightbulb?" in Latin. No, actually it's "How much do you think I paid for this apartment?". Here's hoping, in the wake of the BBC's superb The Roman Way series, written and presented by David Aaranovich, that good old Latin is on its way back, albeit in an Internet, soundbitey way. Those intending to smuggle some into MetaFilter should definitely start here. The owner, for instance, might find Ne ponatur in mea vicinitate useful - "Not in my backyard". And Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione - "I'm not interested in your dopey religious cult" should prove popular in the God threads. Vale!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:30 AM PST - 26 comments

Does Morrissey have a girlfriend?

Signs of the coming apocalypse Does Morrissey have a (gasp) Girlfriend? I have heard this rumor from a drunken blonde at a party and i call on the power of meta to solve it! tame link here..smiths link here..comeback review here..an order from the great man here.
posted by sgt.serenity at 1:41 AM PST - 42 comments

Challenger Nuclear Prometheus rockets

Perhaps after the Challenger tragedy Nasa will rethink Project Prometheus.
posted by thedailygrowl at 12:04 AM PST - 23 comments

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