Dave Egger's book You Shall Know Our Velocity is for sale at Costco. This is the guy that wouldn't sell his book in chain bookstores.
Just picked it up; haven't read it yet, will report back.
July 2003 Archives
Our illustrious leader gave a fine performance this morning at his press conference. To every pointed question — Did the adminstration overly hype the danger that Saddam's regime posed? Where's the WMD? Why won't you release the rest of the 9/11 report? — he replies "The world is better off without Saddam!" and goes off on a long tangent. Oh, and after I turned off the radio (both out of frustration and because I had to go catch my train) he did finally answer a question directly. Too bad it was about this old dead horse:
"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or another," Bush told reporters at a White House news conference. "And we've got lawyers looking at the best way to do that."
People, we've apparently still got Al Queda out there, planning to bring down more planes. Also, apparently, our excursion in Iraq is diverting resources away from the real war on terror. We don't have enough Arabic-speaking FBI or CIA staff. Our ports are still not safe. The FBI wastes time and manpower interviewing a guy for reading an article in a cafe while being young and bearded. Oh, and how about that little Darpa project? I can understand why they might research something like that. I cannot for the life of me understand how the project got as far as it did. What a total lack of common sense... or common feeling.
Feel safer yet? I sure as hell don't, and you shouldn't either.
We've got to get these horrible people out of DC.
--> www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/ 07/30/bush.gay.marriage/index.html
Found via Mermaniac, I proudly present:
Silence of the Lambs: The Musical
You will find yourself humming "Put the Fucking Lotion in the Basket". I guarantee it. (Though "It's Me" is pretty catchy too.)
The news:
Saddam's sons carrying Viagra and cash when killedA stash of Viagra, a condom and £60 million in cash were found with the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein.
American troops discovered a briefcase stuffed with the sex aids, numerous bottles of cologne, dress shirts and a silk tie in the northern Iraqi home where Saddam's sons were killed last week. Two women's purses were also found near the bodies following the gun battle with US forces, according to Newsweek.
The unworthy thought:
"Not just your ordinary working stiffs!"
(I am terminally afflicted with bad puns.)
Some of his fellow musicians should take note (or perhaps they will just not want to be seen as being on the same side as Michael Jackson on anything.) The guy talks real sense here, though...
Michael Jackson: Don't jail downloadersLOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Michael Jackson says Congress should make no laws that could land music fans in jail for downloading songs illegally over the Internet.
"I am speechless about the idea of putting music fans in jail for downloading music. It is wrong to download, but the answer cannot be jail," Jackson said in a statement released Monday.
The pop star was referring to a bill before Congress that would make it a federal felony to obtain copyright (sic) works over the Internet without permission.
"Here in America we create new opportunities out of adversity, not punitive laws ...," he said. "It is the fans that drive the success of the music business; I wish this would not be forgotten."
--> CNN, July 22, 2003, www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ ptech/07/22/jackson.fileshare.ap/index.html
There was a fire at the Eiffel tower today.
Check out this webcam — you can't see the top of the tower where the fire happened, but you can see all the fire trucks and firefighters.
Update: The webcam operator pointed the camera at the top of the tower. I can't see any smoke now.
Good interview. I think it's only available to subscribers, so here are my favorite bits:
it's a huge failure of imagination if someone can't imagine why someone would support Bush. Since roughly half the population did.
An entry in Shannon_a's blog pointed me to this account of a young writer in Atlanta who, according to him, received a friendly visit from two FBI agents. It seems that somebody had seen him reading something in a cafe near the bookstore near where he worked, and had somehow found this suspicious.
The FBI isn't — or at least wasn't — supposed to go after people for engaging in First Amendment activities — there's supposed to be other causes for suspicion. Ah, but the PATRIOT Act loosened the restrictions that were put on the FBI after the abuses of the 1950s and 1960s. (More here.a)
If this account is true, it's hard to imagine what other grounds there could be.
Yes, something is really wrong in this country right now.
--> The story: atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2003-07-17/rant.html
--> What he was reading: charlotte.creativeloafing.com/newsstand/ 2003-06-04/news_cover.html
--> What the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had to say about it: www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0703/21combatant.html
Joe Klein (who knows from lying presidents) takes on Dubya and Iraq.
"The President seems to believe that wishing will make it so — and he is so stupendously incurious that he rarely makes an effort to find the truth of the matter. He misleads not only the nation but himself. Every worst-case Saddam scenario just had to be true, as did every best-case post-Saddam scenario. Bush's talent for self-deception extends to domestic and economic policy. He probably believes that he's a compassionate conservative, even though he has allowed every antipoverty program he favors to be eviscerated by Congress."
--> "How Bush Misleads Himself / Bush must get over his self delusions and take responsibility for Iraq", Joe Klein, Time Magazine, July 21, 2003, www.time.com/time/columnist/ klein/article/0,9565,466118,00.html
Continue reading Does your nose grow if you lie to yourself?.
It's nice to see someone giving the East Bay its due! I've already found out about several cool things thanks to this site, just in the five minutes since I discovered it.
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