a handful of isoldes

Bear Stearns/LTCM

2008-03-27T19:12:00.002-05:00

Podcast listening on your Samsung D807/T809

2006-08-08T14:11:00.000-05:00

I was thrilled to discover Melodeo today when I was searching for info on downloading podcasts to my Samsung D807 (Cingular). I had previously used Pod2Mob, which seems to have fallen by the wayside and/or been abandoned by its creators.

The Melodeo "Mobilcast" service provides a wealth of podcasts from all over the spectrum, and even though my phone wasn't listed as a supported handset as yet, I was able to download the Java/J2ME Melodeo app to the D807 via an SMS link and listen to podcasts in a matter of minutes. I suspect it will work just as well with the D807's sister phone, the T809 on T-Mobile.

After downloading and starting the app on my phone, I generated a "sync code" on the main Melodeo website using my laptop, and I was then able to enter the code in a box on my phone and link to all the favorites I had chosen via the web interface. It worked flawlessly.

The great thing about the service is that it streams the podcasts directly to your phone in real time, which eliminates the need to download and save huge MP3 files to the phone's memory. Of course, this means the service could be subject to network congestion and the like now and then, and it means you won't be able to listen if you're on a small, uncharted island somewhere - but for those times, one can still go the other route and save the files on the phone's microSD card via the podcast provider's website.

Mobilcast is a great service, and it's free thusfar. It's still in beta, so one can only wonder what the plan is vis-a-vis revenue generation in the future. For now at least, it's great to have access to all the news and such that I've been missing.

UPDATE 8/9/2006: Having experimented with it further, I'm still happy with the service, but I've noticed one quirk with the D807 phone (which is admittedly an unsupported model thusfar, as noted above). The volume on some podcasts leaves a lot to be desired when using the phone's built-in speaker, and there doesn't seem to be a way to increase it beyond the too-low level in those cases. Of course, volume isn't an issue when I use the cheap T809 headset I acquired via eBay, but once in awhile it would be nice to listen to those podcasts without the use of headphones. Some of this problem may be due to the D807's well-known, low-volume issue with its speaker (people are actively searching for a hack to improve things), but it would also be great if the Mobilcast software had a better volume interface with the phone. Overall, though, I'm still very happy to have streaming access to all of the podcasts on my phone.

Israel destroys two Red Cross ambulances

2006-07-26T01:44:00.000-05:00

From the Guardian:

The ambulance headlamps were on, the blue light overhead was flashing, and another light illuminated the Red Cross flag when the first Israeli missile hit, shearing off the right leg of the man on the stretcher inside. As he lay screaming beneath fire and smoke, patients and ambulance workers scrambled for safety, crawling over glass in the dark. Then another missile hit the second ambulance.

Even in a war which has turned the roads of south Lebanon into killing zones, Israel's rocket strike on two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances on Sunday night set a deadly new milestone.

Children and the cost of war

2006-07-24T13:55:00.000-05:00

Standing in front of this 8-year-old boy lying in a hospital bed, the "conflict in the Middle East" and the "cost of war" seem endless and suffocating. His pain cannot possibly be imagined as he shakes uncontrollably in and out of shock. He has blood coming from his eyes.

His name is Mahmood Monsoor and he is horribly burned. In the hospital bed next to him is his 8-month-old sister, Maria -- also burned. Screaming at the top of her lungs is the children's mother, Nuhader Monsoor. She is standing over her baby, looking at her son -- and probably thinking of her dead husband. The smell of burned flesh is overwhelming.

This story, for the Monsoor family, started out as a typical one, probably one that most of us have experienced. They had simply gone on a family vacation to some lovely sunny beaches, but these beaches were in southern Lebanon.

The six of them, like thousands of others, were fleeing the fighting -- trying to get north, waving white flags, when an Israeli bomb or missile slammed into their car.

John Negroponte cited as roadblock to accurate assessment of Iraq

2006-07-24T02:36:00.000-05:00

John Negroponte, arguably an honorary member of the "American al Qaeda" for his role in helping to facilitate and then cover up the torture and killing of hundreds of innocents in Nicaragua and environs during the 1980s, has recently been cited as having stood in the way when a new assessment of the state of affairs in Iraq was proposed.

It's thought that an accurate look at things as they stand in Iraq would paint a dire picture that might cause headaches for the Bush administration and some on Capitol Hill, and Negroponte, in his role as Director of National Intelligence, is thought to have stepped in to block efforts to do so.

Meanwhile, many employees of the C.I.A. and other agencies are privately advocating for an honest and overdue look at the state of things in conflict-torn Iraq, a situation that has highlighted the deepening chasm between rank-and-file agents and analysts and Negroponte, a political appointee with a considerable accumulation of dirty laundry in his past that many feel sullies the intelligence community he ostensibly oversees.

It's thought that Negroponte and his allies will ultimately lose out, as many are working from within and without the various agencies to make public what is known about the ongoing strife in Iraq, not least the evidence that the U.S. incursion has fomented a bona-fide civil war that shows every sign of increasing in intensity. Whether such efforts will result in the formal issue of a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) document is open to speculation.

Moreover, additional evidence may be emerging that will serve to undermine Negroponte's credibility as an advocate for the interests of the U.S. populace, the Iraqi populace or any populace, save the small, disgraced subset of humanity who traffic in human misery and depredation - the McVeighs, the Pinochets, the bin Ladens of this world - and this may be the final straw for him as a viable participant on the world stage.

Bush administration signs off on killing of Lebanese civilians

2006-07-23T23:15:00.000-05:00

With little internal debate, the Bush administration has approved the expedited shipment of laser-guided bombs to Israel, which is in the midst of an escalating conflict with Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. The Israeli military's deliberate targeting of civilians who have no role in the conflict, scores of whom have been killed and maimed since hostilities began, appears to have left Washington unfazed.

Israel government forces murder civilians in minivan

2006-07-23T20:29:00.000-05:00

A family of civilians fleeing the fighting in Lebanon was targeted by Israel's military today in an act of wanton violence that left a 12-year-old boy to watch his mother die before his eyes.

The Bush legacy: nearly 6,000 Iraqi civilians died in May and June

2006-07-19T03:23:00.000-05:00

From the CBC:

An average of nearly 100 Iraqi civilians were killed every day in May and June, a UN report released Tuesday says.

The toll in the two months was 5,818 deaths, the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq reported.

The report shows civilian deaths have risen steadily this year, from 710 in January to 1,129 in April to 2,669 in May and 3,149 in June. It calculated that 14,338 people had been killed in the first half of the year.

More here.

Smile

2006-07-19T02:46:00.000-05:00

(Seemingly available here, in various configurations.)

Samsung SGH-P200 phone out in Italy - US version soon?

2006-07-19T02:22:00.000-05:00

Engadget is reporting the release of this UMA (WiFi, etc. - definition) slider cell phone in Italy this week, with the potential for the P200's sister, the T709, to be released on T-Mobile sometime soon in the US.

David Letterman’s Top 10 Moments of George W Bush

2006-07-19T00:53:00.000-05:00

Video here, via Crooks and Liars.

James Wolcott on George Bush's Roving Hands

2006-07-19T00:50:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it was nothing more than Bush's usual privileged-snot appropriation at play. A symptom of the same syndrome that has him hanging nicknames on people, and kissing bald men on the head. Reports in the Financial Times and elsewhere have indicated that Bush is hoping/planning to groom [Angela] Merkel as the US's number one ally to fill the spot of the fading Tony Blair, to whose troubles Putin wickedly alluded. It's difficult to know what would be in it for Merkel or Germany, given the lopsidedness of the special relationship between Bush and Blair, where Blair stands stalwart on the War on Terror and for his orotund loyalty receives the contempt of his own people, cries of "poodle" in the press, and the back of Bush's hand over global warming, trade, etc. But Bush has always been a taker, not a giver. He wasn't giving Merkel a massage, he was taking possession of her, letting everybody know, "This little lady's mine." I wonder what Merkel's husband thought of Bush's handy familiarity. I can't imagine Laura Bush was too thrilled.

Pumped Up on Carbon Dioxide, Vines Strengthen Their Grip

2006-07-19T00:42:00.000-05:00

Vines -- poison ivy, Japanese honeysuckle, kudzu -- snake through the back yard, girdling trees and strangling shrubs, thriving, scientists say, on the same pollution they blame for global warming.

From backyard gardens to the Amazon rain forest, vines are growing faster, stronger and, in the case of poison ivy, more poisonous on the heavy doses of carbon dioxide that come from burning such fossil fuels as gasoline and coal."

(From the Washington Post. More here.)

White House links to imprisoned Bush campaign official's scheme?

2006-05-17T20:38:00.000-05:00

James Tobin, a high-level official in the effort get George Bush re-elected in 2002, was sentenced to 10 months in prison this week and fined $10,000 for engaging in a vote supression scheme in New Hampshire.

The scheme involved jamming get-out-the-vote lines set up by a firefighter's association and the Democratic Party, which may have influenced the turnout in a number of very close elections, most of which were ultimately won by Republicans.

Subsequently, 22 telephone calls were made by Tobin and New Hampshire Republican Party officials to the White House in the days immediately following the elections. While this is obviously not proof of White House involvement in the scheme, the flurry of calls is seen by some as highly suspect.

From the article:

The former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, Chuck McGee, was also convicted after testifying that he had come up with the idea for the scheme.
Allen Raymond, former president of a Republican consulting firm in Virginia, was jailed after admitting to arranging for telemarketing company to make the calls.
"We need to find out how high this goes in the Republican Party," said Paul Twomey, an attorney for the Democratic Party who is leading a separate civil lawsuit that alleges Republican voter fraud and seeks monetary damages.

Great Billie Holiday footage from 1957 TV

2006-05-08T16:17:00.000-05:00

Billie Holiday sings "Fine and Mellow" (YouTube link), with Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Gerry Mulligan, Roy Eldridge, Doc Cheatham, Vic Dickenson, Danny Barker, Milt Hinton, and Mal Waldron accompanying her on a 1957 airing of the CBS TV program, "The Sound of Jazz".

18 super-wealthy families secretly lead effort to repeal estate tax

2006-04-28T21:14:00.000-05:00

From Sam Smith's Undernews:

The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy. The report reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.

(...)

In a massive public relations campaign, the families have also misled the country by giving the mistaken impression that the estate tax affects most Americans. In particular, they have used small businesses and family farms as poster children for repeal, saying that the estate tax destroys both of these groups. But just more than one-fourth of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006. And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable when asked by The New York Times to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability.

Kevin Ray Underwood blogged about depression, social anxiety

2006-04-17T00:52:00.000-05:00

It appears the 26-year-old man who murdered Jamie Rose Bolin, the 10-year-old girl from Purcell Oklahoma who lived in the apartment upstairs with her dad, had blogged at length about an almost crippling social anxiety problem and an ongoing struggle with depression.

In particular, posts here and here discuss his troubles, though he also goes on from month to month about his small-town supermarket job, his musical interests (They Might Be Giants, Fat Boy Slim, Chumbawamba, Pink Floyd, Daft Punk, Rob Zombie, Weird Al Yankovic...), and innumerable other topics that captured his attention. He clearly had a healthy interest in many things, and his wide-ranging intellect marked him as someone who might have been successful at something if he'd been given the help that he needed.

Unfortunately, Kevin seems like a poster child for the fucked-up health care delivery system in the U.S. In all likelihood, what he needed was some intervention on the part of someone who understood his particular circumstances (and maybe a few adjustments vis-a-vis his medications). Reading his blog, it's striking how the psychological issues he's been dealing with are, for the most part, fairly straightforward and would likely be manageable with the right treatment. And in almost every other respect, he comes off as a relatively normal, capable individual.

Was he a "cannibal"? No. Certainly, in his extremely desperate, compromised state, he committed actions that suggest he was about to commit a cannibalistic act. But that doesn't make him a cannibal any more than George Bush's having piloted a plane a few times and worn a flight suit on the deck of a carrier makes him a flying ace.

Had Kevin been given the help he needed, the acts he committed might have been - in all probability, would have been - avoided, but the system failed to deliver. Now it's too late for him, and especially, too late for his young, unfortunate victim.

Y.E.L.R.A (Your Ever-Lovin' Restroom Attendant) takes his leave

2006-04-04T02:56:00.000-05:00

Alas, we'll miss the anecdotes. For those who haven't encountered said restroom attendant's blog, here's a snippet from his introductory post, written in August of 2005:

Where am I going with this? What I'm trying to say is that I have a lot of stories about what goes on in a unisex restroom. Some will surprise you, others will make you shake your head in disbelief over the way people act towards each other. In all honesty, I have some stories ready to share. Others have not happened yet.

It's going to be interesting...

You can check out the blog (assuming he leaves it up) here.

Speaking of the minimum wage...

2006-04-02T01:09:00.000-06:00

In the context of an article in the New York Times on the "mobile homeless" (people forced to live in their cars), the writer highlights the following factoid:

Last year was the first year on record, according to an annual study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, that a full-time worker at minimum wage could not afford a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country at average market rates.

Not anywhere. Wow.

Big changes at 666 Broadway, 11th Floor

2006-03-27T20:23:00.000-06:00

The new editor of Harper's Magazine rides a skateboard.

I know - "BFD," you'll say. What's more, you'll have to read through the whole piece to find the tidbit. Ah, well.

(BTW, the mag really does reside at 666 Broadway, along with a handful of other nonprofit entities.)

86% of Americans want an increase in the minimum wage

2006-03-27T20:10:00.000-06:00

This level of support is uniform across the entire political spectrum, with the exception of that small subset of the citizenry that the Pew Research Center defines as "Enterprisers" - staunch right-wingers with a professed zeal for the free enterprise system, patriotism (including the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act), monied, pro-corporate, anti-welfare, minimal environmental regulation... you get the picture.

Graphs of the different levels of support here.

Iraq war hoopla, revisited

2006-03-21T21:37:00.000-06:00

The good people at FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) have compiled a jaw-dropping collection of quotes from 2003 and thereabouts, in which various members of the press gush about the "success" and the ostensibly hasty denouement of the war in Iraq. It's about time they're reminded of their foolishness and slavish disregard for their proper role as skeptical inquirers! In retrospect, some of the statements are just breathtakingly stupid. (Actually, most were just as stupid at the time.)

Forward the link to all those you know who may have conveniently overlooked what a sorry state the mainstream media is in, Helen Thomas notwithstanding.

"The Road to Guantanamo" gets U.S. release

2006-03-21T04:34:00.000-06:00

"The Road to Guantanamo," which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won the Silver Bear prize for best director, has been picked up by distributors Roadside Attraction in the U.S., and will be opening here early this summer after a spring showing at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

The hybrid docu/dramatization tells the story of three British men who traveled to Pakistan to plan a wedding, were picked up as terrorist suspects, and were spirited away to the prison at Guantanamo for a two-year incarceration that ended in their release with no charges brought against them.

And in a case of "life imitates art imitates life," the actors who played the three British prisoners were detained and questioned by police at the airport on their return from the Berlin Film Festival before being released without arrest.

Czech Republic passes landmark gay rights law

2006-03-15T16:00:00.000-06:00

The Czech parliament has passed a law giving gay couples the right to inherit a partner's property and raise (but not adopt) children, making the Czech Republic the first formerly-communist country to do so.

Previously, Czech President Vaclav Kraus had vetoed the measure, but it's now been passed with a majority that's sufficient to override a new veto.

In defense of his earlier veto, the President had stated that the law amounted to "excessive regulation of people's private lives". That's funny - I would have thought it amounted to a freeing-up of people's private lives, but maybe that's just me.

Arab banks switching reserves from dollars to euros

2006-03-15T01:53:00.000-06:00

From the UK's Independent:

Middle Eastern anger over the decision by the US to block a Dubai company from buying five of its ports hit the dollar yesterday as a number of central banks said they were considering switching reserves into euros.

The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, said it was looking to move one-tenth of its dollar reserves into euros, while the governor of the Saudi Arabian central bank condemned the US move as "discrimination".

Separately, Syria responded to US sanctions against two of its banks by confirming plans to use euros instead of dollars for its external transactions.

The remarks combined to knock the dollar, which fell against the euro, pound and yen yesterday as analysts warned other central banks might follow suit.

Just one small step, but who's to say how far it might someday reach? And if oil is increasingly denominated in euros, watch out...

Reacting to the Dubai ports issue, the governor of the Saudi Arabian monetary authority was quoted in the article as saying,

"Is it protection or discrimination? Is it okay for US companies to buy everywhere but it is not okay for other companies to buy the US?"

He has an excellent point. And never mind that the workers at the U.S. ports, regardless of the company they work for, would largely remain Americans. There wouldn't be waves of turbaned dockworkers descending on the ports, dropping out of the sky like the legions of monkeys from Oz. We're talking about ownership here, not employees. There's a big difference!

It's really much ado about nothing, though the repercussions could be anything but nothing if actions like the above by the banks multiply.

Stupid Republicans, stupid opportunistic Democrats. Fuck them all. Then again, as I've said before, the dollar deserves to get knocked off its pedestal as the world's "premier" currency, so maybe it's for the best!

Significant rise in CO2 levels seen

2006-03-13T18:00:00.000-06:00

From the BBC:

BBC News has learned the latest data shows CO2 levels now stand at 381 parts per million (ppm) - 100ppm above the pre-industrial average.

The research indicates that 2005 saw one of the largest increases on record - a rise of 2.6ppm. (...)

The chief carbon dioxide analyst for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) says the latest data confirms a worrying trend that recent years have, on average, recorded double the rate of increase from just 30 years ago.

"We don't see any sign of a decrease; in fact, we're seeing the opposite, the rate of increase is accelerating," Dr Pieter Tans told the BBC. (...)

"Today we're over 380 ppm," he said. "That's higher than we've been for over a million years, possibly 30 million years. Mankind is changing the climate".

Donald Rumsfeld scores big on bird flu drug

2006-03-13T02:22:00.000-06:00

From an article in the UK Independent:

Donald Rumsfeld has made a killing out of bird flu. The US Defence Secretary has made more than $5m (£2.9m) in capital gains from selling shares in the biotechnology firm that discovered and developed Tamiflu, the drug being bought in massive amounts by Governments to treat a possible human pandemic of the disease. (...)

Mr Rumsfeld was on the board of Gilead from 1988 to 2001, and was its chairman from 1997. He then left to join the Bush administration, but retained a huge shareholding. (...)

Mr Rumsfeld sold some of his Gilead shares in 2004 reaping - according to the financial disclosure report he is required to make each year - capital gains of more than $5m. The report showed that he still had up to $25m-worth of shares at the end of 2004, and at least one analyst believes his stake has grown well beyond that figure, as the share price has soared.

Republicans - the actual "Party of Death"

2006-03-11T16:44:00.000-06:00

Steve at the Carpetbagger Report, riffing on a post by Andrew Sullivan, highlights the right wing's opposition to a vaccine that's highly effective in preventing cervical cancer, on the grounds that they believe said vaccine will increase the likelyhood of pre-marital sex. He writes:

Let's be clear here. There is a vaccine that is literally 100% effective in preventing cervical cancer and precancerous changes tied to two types of a common sexually transmitted virus. But for the right, the vaccine may let young people believe they can have sex without getting cervical cancer, so, naturally, as far as they're concerned, the vaccine must not be available.

A vaccine could prevent more than 200,000 women from dying of cervical cancer each year (including 5,000 women in the United States). As New Scientist recently reported, deaths from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year by 2050, mainly in developing countries, all of which are preventable with this vaccine.

The far-right GOP base doesn't seem to care. It comes down to a fairly straightforward position: The vaccine may lead to more pre-marital sex, so let those hundreds of thousands of women die a painful death.

Ah, yes - giving the Taliban a run for their money, right here in the U.S. of A. Never let it be said that "it can't happen here."

Condi's coca leaf charango

2006-03-11T16:03:00.000-06:00

Bolivia's new leader, Evo Morales, presented this coca leaf-inlaid guitar (a traditional Andean charango) to Condoleezza Rice when they met for the first time before the inauguration of Chile's newly-elected female president, Michelle Bachelet.

Affordable rental housing disappearing

2006-03-08T01:59:00.001-06:00

A new Harvard University study highlights the dwindling supply of affordable rental housing throughout the U.S. Of course, this doesn't come as a shock to those of us familiar with the condoification of big cities and the creeping "ownership paradigm" that all but shuts renters out of the calculus on housing...

The study finds nearly 200,000 rental units being lost annually nationwide, despite a sizeable projected increase in demand over the next ten years, largely as a result of immigration.

What's more, while the median rent for 2004 was up 33 percent from ten years earlier, the median renter's income had only risen 3 percent.

Ambien users become somnambulists

2006-03-07T22:25:00.000-06:00

The New York Times reports that an increasing number of cases are turning up around the country involving users of Ambien, the prescription sleeping drug, involved in bizarre sleepwalking or sleep-driving episodes:

Ambien, the nation's best-selling prescription sleeping pill, is showing up with regularity as a factor in traffic arrests, sometimes involving drivers who later say they were sleep-driving and have no memory of taking the wheel after taking the drug. (...)

Doctors affiliated with the University of Minnesota Medical Center who have studied Ambien recently reported the cases of two users who told doctors they sleep-drove to the supermarket while under the drug's influence. Neither of the patients remembered the episode the next day, according to Dr. Carlos Schenck, an expert in sleep disorders who is the lead researcher in the study. (...)
The traffic cases around the country include that of Dwayne Cribb, a longtime probation and parole officer in Rock Hill, S.C. Mr. Cribb says he remembers nothing after taking Ambien before bed last Halloween — until he awoke in jail to learn he had left his bed and gone for a drive, smashed into a parked van and driven away before crashing into a tree. Mr. Cribb is still facing charges of leaving the scene of an accident.
A registered nurse who lives outside Denver took Ambien before going to sleep one night in January 2003. Sometime later — she says she remembers none of the episode — she got into her car wearing only a thin nightshirt in 20-degree weather, had a fender bender, urinated in the middle of an intersection, then became violent with police officers, according to her lawyer.

James Wolcott on Hollywood and "middle America"

2006-03-07T00:04:00.000-06:00

Is Hollywood "out of step"? Vanity Fair columnist/editor James Wolcott's take, as with a few others - George Clooney among them, interviewed just prior to the Oscars - is that Hollywood always has been, and we should count our lucky stars.

(The rest of Wolcott's blog is well worth a general peruse as well...)

Survey: Africans "most optimistic"

2006-03-05T04:00:00.000-06:00

Further to the previous post which touches on the fact that, as continents go, Africa is as ravaged as they come, the New York Times has a story regarding a recent Gallup survey of 50,000 people that found Africans to be the most optimistic on the planet.

My first reaction was that it made some sense - when you're so far down, gazing upward at the little patch of blue at the top of the well might come naturally. But then I realized how easy it is to just give up when everything's pressing down, or at least wallow in misery as one slogs on from day to day, as so many people are wont to do.

The article posits that religion may have a significant role in shaping attitudes there, which does make sense. As anyone who's jettisoned religious belief in favor of a more scientific or "rational" world view will tell you (count me in), losing one's religion has a peculiar bottom-falling-out aspect that's both liberating and a bit daunting. Yes, you're on your own, after all - no cushion, no "reason", no guide except your nose.

But if anyone's in dire need of an undergirding of optimism at present, it's the populace of Africa. Maybe the phrase "by any means necessary" has special relevance in the present context.

John Dolan: don't blame Africa!

2006-03-02T22:56:00.000-06:00

The eXile is a Moscow-based, English-language alternative newspaper founded by American journalist Mark Ames ten years ago. The formidable columnist Matt Taibbi joined Ames not long thereafter.

The ongoing saga of the paper is apparently compelling enough that Good Machine, Ang Lee's (Brokeback Mountain) production company, is working on a feature film chronicling the story.

Will they include the scene wherein eXile staffers tossed a cream pie filled with horse semen in the face of New York Times Moscow Bureau Chief Michael Wines, in honor of their having picked him as "Worst Journalist in Russia"-? We'll have to wait and see.

John Dolan is another writer/editor on the eXile roster, and he penned an excellent, no-holds-barred review this week of a ludicrous book by Martin Meredith that attempts to pin the blame for the sorry state of Africa on Africans themselves, rather than the colonial powers who made a mess of things and then hightailed it out of there. The review is well worth a read - if nothing else, to inspire anyone who has aspirations to write an effective, engaging piece of polemic.

Global warming made explicit

2006-03-02T22:35:00.000-06:00

Longtime Artic explorer Arved Fuchs was interviewed for Germany's Der Speigel Online, and he made no bones about the fact that the polar ice caps are disappearing at an astonishing rate.

Frankly, given the statistics that have appeared recently, it might not be unreasonable to revise our assessments - from "we'd better do something, quick" to "fuck, it's too late!"

If you don't believe me, you can view the accompanying slideshow documenting the disappearing ice caps here (11 images - click through to the maps at the end).

Unlikely (?) Iran-U.S. war scenario

2006-02-28T02:49:00.000-06:00

An editorial in the Mauritius l'express is proposing an admittedly farfetched, but no less intriguing, explanation for the U.S. government's mounting interest in Iran and the ostensible possibility of armed conflict with same:

Here’s the scenario. On 20 March Iran opens a new "bourse" (exchange) on which countries all over the world can buy and sell oil and gas not only for dollars but also for euros. It also establishes a new oil "marker" (oil pricing standard) based on Iranian crude and denominated in euros, in open rivalry to the existing West Texas Intermediate, Norway Brent and UAE Dubai markers, all of which are calculated in US dollars.

The Iranian bourse is a instant success with countries and companies that are unhappy about having to hold huge amounts of overvalued US dollars to finance their oil transactions, all of which must presently be conducted in that currency. Very large sums start to shift from the dollar to the euro, although exactly how much is unknown because the US Federal Reserve System (by pure coincidence, of course) has chosen late March as the time to stop publishing the data that would make it easy to know how fast the haemorrhage was.

But the US government knows, and is deeply alarmed by the danger that the dollar may be losing its status as the world’s only reserve currency. Given the huge deficits that plague the US economy, the US dollar’s value would collapse if other countries began to see it as just another currency, so the euro must be prevented from emerging as an alternative reserve currency. In practice, that means the Iranian experiment with a euro-denominated oil bourse must be stopped -- and the only way to do that is to attack Iran.

OK, what are the odds? Still, it's interesting. Fears over the loss of "reserve currency" status for the dollar have been increasing over the past few years, not least with the ascendancy of China and said country's correspondingly large footprint in the currency exchange market. There are people who think the Chinese yuan will overtake the dollar within a few decades, if not less, which would likely mean a sizeable adjustment in the living standards of the average U.S. citizen and the U.S.'s overall influence in the world. Never mind the already encroaching influence of the euro.

The March 20 establishment of Iran's exchange is very real, but the above scenario seems unlikely. Either way, I think the elimination of the dollar as the world's reserve currency could only be a good thing. It's about time. We've been swinging our collective weight around for too long, and look what a state the world's in because of it. I've got a good, working coffee maker from China, and another old one collecting dust in the cupboard. I'm not worried about loss of buying power, as long as I have coffee to drink. We buy way too much stuff anyway - it's practically all we do - and throttling back is probably the first step on the road to recovery, should there ever be such a thing. I'll be ready to cut back as soon as my, er, Nokia N80 arrives...

More good news for chocolate fiends

2006-02-28T01:59:00.000-06:00

A fifteen-year study of cocoa consumers in the Netherlands indicates they're half as likely to die from disease as their foolish non-consuming counterparts. An article on the Scientific American website, reviewing the study, says

...despite being strongly associated with greater intake of calories, chocolate lowered the overall risk of cardiovascular or any other disease by as much as 50 percent.

Chocolate consumption - dark chocolate bars, hot cocoa, chocolate spreads, and many other forms - decreased blood pressure and was found to increase lifespan, though the precise mechanism for doing so is still a mystery.

"Cardiovascular or any other disease" - that's awfully freaking general and all-encompassing! But I've been eating chocolate of some kind every day for ages, so I must be slated for another 50 to 60 years, at least. Now, if I could only eat a few fruits and vegetables now and then. Can you imagine a vegetarian who doesn't eat vegetables? Thank goodness for vitamin supplements.

50 choices (part 2)

2006-02-27T20:33:00.000-06:00

Hex, Hex - Steve Kilbey of the Church and Donette Thayer of Game Theory created this little masterpiece of dreamy, ethereal, mind-altering pop and I don't think it's ever really been matched. Yeah, they recorded at least one other album under the Hex moniker, but this self-titled one stands out as a unique, multi-faceted gem. Thayer sings seductively of strange, sensual worlds, her mysterious lyrics dripping with psychedelia and vague allusions to fables and hallucinatory, chemical-induced reveries. The music is suitably atmospheric, melodic and captivating. The CD is hard to find, I'm told, but well worth a hunt.

Autechre, Incunabula - Given their extremely inventive nature, Autechre has been all over the map since they began as a duo, their recent work with Andrew McKenzie (The Hafler Trio) providing yet more evidence of same, and consequently opinions will vary as to their "best" work. This CD was their first full-length release, and I still love it to death. Understated, hypnotic snatches of techno combine with seductive washes of ambient synths, quirky and unusual percussive sounds, subtle melodic touches, and sophisticated beats. It manages to be great, sleepy late-night music and great driving music - it just depends on the volume setting. It'll likely accompany the writing of your first novel, too. Another one I never tire of.

Miles Davis, Water Babies - With all the Miles out there, why this one? Well, it's an unusual, overlooked release that I've held close to me since the day I first encountered it. Columbia released it in 1976, ten years after the tracks were recorded. It features Davis, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Dave Holland, and (as you'll read almost anyplace where there's a review), it manages to form a seamless little bridge between Miles's acoustic and electric periods. Even though it wasn't an "official" release, having been cobbled together from a few sessions, it has a quirky charm that holds it together. I had a friend buy my first CD copy for me in Japan, as it was so obscure for awhile it wasn't even in print here in the U.S. But now it's widely available, used and new.

Ray Wonder, Get Back Inside - Sweden's Ray Wonder already had a couple of releases under their collective belt when they put out this 7-song EP in 1995. I've heard much of their output (and they were staples on Radio K for quite awhile a few years back), but there's something about this EP that never fails to knock me upside the head. The performance is tight, the lyrics (all in English, natch) are by turns funny and provocative, the music is alternately grandiose and humble, and it rocks. Anyone who likes offbeat indie rock/pop would dig this.

Eddie Jefferson, There I Go Again - In the late 1930s, Jefferson pioneered an amazingly effective technique that involved writing lyrics to accompany, or take the place of, recorded improvisations by well-known jazz soloists. Working directly with artists like Coleman Hawkins and James Moody, or just listening to performances on 78rpm records, Jefferson came up with lyrics that he later layed down on tracks for labels like Riverside and Inner City. This compilation includes twenty-two cuts recorded in the 1950s and 1960s, including great renditions based on Charlie Parker's "Parker's Mood", Gil Fuller's "Workshop", and Johnny Griffin's "Soft and Furry".

Various, Folds and Rhizomes for Gilles Deleuze - This "compilation" on the Sub Rosa label includes five tracks from Mouse On Mars, Main, Oval, Scanner, and Hazan + Shea (that's David Shea, BTW), all done in tribute to the life and work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, released shortly after he passed away in 1995. It's nothing short of mesmerizing, and has become a desert-island favorite of mine. Less adventurous listeners may approach it with caution, given that it's comprised of a great deal of found and manipulated sound, sonic textures and the like; you can't sing along, and you won't likely find yourself breakdancing around the room (though your neurons may be doing a jig), but those with an open mind and a thirst for intriguing, lowercase soundscapes will dig it. Note that this CD is not to be confused with a later, related issue called Double Articulation, which involved the same artists remixing each other. Interesting in its own way, but the first is the best, IMHO. The Mouse On Mars and Scanner tracks in particular are excellent.

That makes thirteen...

Never-before published photos from civil rights struggle in Alabama

2006-02-27T14:50:00.000-06:00

A large cache of images related to the struggle to eliminate segregation in the 1950s and 1960s was found in a closet at the Birmingham News by an intern. A number of them have been posted online.

Cartoonist Ted Rall to go after Ann Coulter?

2006-02-27T14:19:00.000-06:00

A worthy endeavor, if ever there was one...

Ted Rall highlights, in his February 21st column, an instance in which Ann Coulter crossed the line from mere criticism (hmm... can any of her bigoted spew be construed as mere criticism?) to outright slander of him, mockingly insinuating that he'd made a submission to the Iranian paper that was soliciting cartoons about the Holocaust in response to the furor over the Dutch Muhammad cartoons. In context, her comment read as reportage, rather than the "joke" that it was.

Rall is contemplating legal action, but needs a fairly sizeable influx of funds to do so. Surely there must be some deep-pocketed liberal out there who could step up to the plate with some cash?

50 choices (part 1)

2006-02-26T02:51:00.000-06:00

New Order, Movement - Their first album, post-Joy Division. Not an oft-cited favorite, but it grabbed me and wouldn't let go, with ghostly echoes of JD and a newly insistent sound that grasped at the future. I fixated on the razor-like guitars, Peter Hook's flowing bass lines (which I tried to play on my acoustic guitar), and Steven Morris's amazing drums. The later Republic album I love as well, as a shimmering example of well-crafted pop, but their recent output seems like dreck.

Hrvatski, Oiseaux 96-98 - Jesus, where do I begin? An earth-shattering compilation of intense, expansive drum and bass excursions, drones, ambience, aural mayhem and pristine beauty like no other. Wondrous.

Art Tatum, Decca Presents... Solos (1940) - An amazing, eye-opening collection from a master piano artist recorded in 1940 in Los Angeles. From Massenet's "Elegie" and Dvorak's "Humoresque" to "Cocktails for Two" and "St. Louis Blues". Endearingly poignant and contemplative, even at its most raucous. I never tire of listening to it.

Five Or Six, A Thriving and Happy Land - A wonderful obscurity - potentially hard to find, but worth it. This was an early venture involving Ashley Wales, later of Spring Heel Jack, and David Knight of Shockheaded Peters, among many other notables (apparently Anthony Adverse even lent her voice to the album!). Tracks of quiet, majestic beauty and others of whimsical, raucous experimentation, with varied instrumentation and nary a thought given to accessible-ness or track length. There's a guy at WZBC-Boston who plays them every week, but other than that you'll likely be the only one within 700 or so miles enjoying them on a moonlit spring night.

West Indian Girl, West Indian Girl - Yeah, I like this one, as does the on-air staff of The Current. An unlikely selection for this list, being that it's described as "dreamy, psychedelic, California shoegazer pop". I've never really connected with things California, music-wise and otherwise, but this one works for me. The lyricist/singer has a knack for verbal hooks, even as the words remain pleasingly abstract, and the music, while it might be characterized as "psyche-lite" as far as intensity goes, nonetheless manages to be inventive and memorable.

Brian Eno and David Byrne, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - I was a very minor Talking Heads fan, and a major Eno/Roxy Music fan when I was coming up. This odd collection of pasted-up odes loosely based on the themes of religion, superstition, the occult and spirituality has always been near the top of my stack, even 25 years after its release. It's a timeless, quirky amalgam of chants, ritual mumblings, religious talk radio, bible-thumping evangelicals and even an exorcism, bonded together with beats and seductive, trance-inducing riffs. And it's pop. There's really nothing like it.

Barry Adamson, Moss Side Story - Adamson, who worked with Magazine and Nick Cave in his early days, released this unique, inventive album in 1988. It's basically a faux-soundtrack for an extremely edgy and cool noir thriller. The film may never have existed, but it'll congeal in your mind as you listen to the discordant sounds blended with groovy, atmospheric riffs throughout. Post-punk industrial sounds mingled with rhythm & blues, strings and sound effects, and more echo than you can shake a stick at.

That's seven. More to come...

The secular origins of Zionist and Palestinian movements

2006-02-25T23:40:00.000-06:00

Uri Avnery has written a short piece that might be eye-opening for some.

In it, he reminds us of the inherently secular (i.e. non-religious) focus of both the early Zionists behind the founding of Israel, as well as the Palestinian Arabs who rose in opposition to them.

Of course, things are exceedingly complicated at present, but his article provides some much-needed historical perspective.

Out of wedlock births surge in U.K.

2006-02-21T00:14:00.000-06:00

Newly-published statistics from the U.K. Office for National Statistics have revealed that out of wedlock births in the United Kingdom rose to a whopping 42 percent in 2004 (!), up from just 12 percent in 1980.

A few more trends from the report are highlighted in an article at the BBC site.

Anti-choice agenda laid bare in Cristina Page's new book

2006-02-18T11:22:00.000-06:00

Rachel Fudge, editor of Bitch, has an interview with Cristina Page at Alternet regarding Page's new book, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex.

Page makes the argument that the contentious abortion issue is really all about anti-contraception and anti-sex forces trying to get control of public policy, and she points out that most Americans - about two thirds - don't actually favor the overturn of Roe v. Wade, even if just half consider themselves "pro-choice". This discrepancy, she asserts, is largely due to people's misperception of what the pro-choice movement is all about, due in no small part to mischaracterizations by anti-choice zealots who run organizations like National Right to Life.

A major theme in the book is the gulf between the ostensible meaning of "pro-life" verses the actual results of the efforts of groups who claim to be so. For instance, a significant amount - almost all, in fact - of the opposition to the mostly positive and progressive Family and Medical Leave Act comes from the anti-choice forces, notwithstanding their supposedly pro-family, pro-child stance. And that finds the pro-lifers out of step with most Americans, given that a majority of said citizens embrace the fundamental aspects of the legislation. Page identifies many other areas in which the efforts of the anti-choice organizations run counter to the inclinations of most Americans, further undermining the notion that they represent majority thought in the U.S. The goal, then, would be to make Americans, who might have been hoodwinked into supporting anti-choice organizations, aware of the true nature and influence of the groups they're writing checks to.

Page also highlights the way in which the Vatican has made deliberate misuse of scientific research to advance their anti-condom agenda, claiming that condom use can cause the spread of AIDS. She writes that the BBC was the only prominent news organisation who went back to the actual scientists whose work has been cited by the Vatican, and found that nearly all of them felt strongly that their work in fact supported the use of condoms to fight the spread of AIDS, contrary to the assertions of the Vatican. In other words, the Vatican brazenly made use of the names and reputations of the scientists to advance their agenda, even though the work of said scientists directly contradicts the Holy See's stance.

Most tellingly, Page points out how the efforts of pro-lifers actually serve to increase abortions, giving the lie to their claims that they value "every human life". She argues that pro-choice organizations have done much more to minimize the need for abortions and have worked harder to improve the lives of all of us through efforts to expand access to child care, contraception, family planning, health insurance and the like.

Well worth a read!

The first-ever Mac OS X virus?

2006-02-16T01:06:00.000-06:00

Say it ain't so...

A thread over on MacRumors is discussing the appearance of a self-propagating Unix executable embedded in a jpeg that was posted on one of the MacRumor forums, purporting to be screenshots of OS 10.5 (Leopard). Its behavior was virus-like, according to some who opened the file.

As it was written to utilize Spotlight to do its dirty work, the intruder would only be worrisome thusfar to users of OS 10.4 (Tiger). I'm still using Panther, thankfully.

See the link above for more explanation. Maybe I shoulda bought that lottery ticket earlier tonight after all!

UPDATE: More on this at TechWeb.

Link to video of Brit soldiers beating youths

2006-02-13T13:04:00.000-06:00

Here. (Player window should launch...)

Worse than I thought, not least since the victims appear to be so young. And the sadistic bellowing and encouragement from the dude doing the filming is beyond comprehension.

Good job, guys. This will do wonders for international relations.

Israeli spy chief in on-camera 'oops'

2006-02-12T20:43:00.000-06:00

Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel's domestic spy agency, didn't realize he was being recorded when he spoke to a group of new military recruits last week.

Saying, "Israel may come to regret the overthrow of Saddam Hussein" and that "strong dictatorship is preferable to chaos," he went on to admit that Israel's judicial system treats Arabs and Jews differently when they're guilty of the same offense, and called Jews who use violence to oppose pulling settlers out of occupied Palestinanian territories "worse than Arab terrorists."

A transcript of the discussion is available here.

Planet Earth's fastest growing city

2006-02-12T18:50:00.000-06:00

True, we've got a lot of condos in Minneapolis, and the downtown population here has more than tripled in the past 5 or 6 years.

But the fastest-growing city in the world is Dubai, where it's said a fifth of the world's cranes are currently at work. They've also got the world's largest shopping mall, with a bigger one on the way, and architectural marvels like nowhere else. The UK Guardian has a profile of the amazing scale of development in this Persian Gulf city.

For a more penetrating look at Dubai, check Mike Davis's Sinister Paradise, which appeared last summer in Mother Jones. After an exposition on the myriad wonders of the city, Davis goes on to say:

On the one hand, it provides investors with a comfortable, Western-style, property-rights regime, including freehold ownership, that is unique in the region. Included with the package is a broad tolerance of booze, recreational drugs, halter tops, and other foreign vices formally proscribed by Islamic law. (When expats extol Dubai's unique "openness," it is this freedom to carouse -- not to organize unions or publish critical opinions -- that they are usually praising.)

He continues:

On the other hand, Dubai, together with its emirate neighbors, has achieved the state of the art in the disenfranchisement of labor. Trade unions, strikes, and agitators are illegal, and 99% of the private-sector workforce are easily deportable non-citizens. Indeed, the deep thinkers at the American Enterprise and Cato institutes must salivate when they contemplate the system of classes and entitlements in Dubai.

Well worth a read...

Photo of Bush and Abramoff

2006-02-12T16:58:00.000-06:00

This is one of the photos provided to TIME that undermine ongoing White House assertions that George Bush has "no recollection" of ever having met lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Despite the White House claim that there was no record of Abramoff at this May, 2001 gathering, the photo clearly shows a smiling Abramoff in the distance. What's more, there were only about two dozen people at this meeting. Regarding the image, Abramoff has said,

I was standing right next to the window and after the picture was taken, the President came over and shook hands with me, and we chatted and joked.

He's previously stated that Bush

...saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids.

There's more info in this short piece at the Truthout site.

Mind candy for a Saturday afternoon

2006-02-11T12:25:00.000-06:00

Last night I revisited my copy of Erotica Universalis, published by Taschen Books. This has always been a favorite, with nearly 600 pages of explicit sexual imagery from the early Greeks all the way up to the Victorian age and beyond. Powell's has this newish edition for just $12.99 (!), which is a compendium of images and text from previous volumes. Every home should have one.

Images of Mohammed from Islamic sources

2006-02-11T12:06:00.000-06:00

...located here. And similar images, albeit with Mohammed's face hidden, here.

Latin America on the ascendency

2006-02-09T10:33:00.000-06:00

If there's anything that almost makes me cream in my jeans these days, it's the rising coalition of left-wing leaders just south o' here - in Venezuela, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina (not to mention staunch holdout Fidel Castro in Cuba, and even center-left leaders like Chile's recently-elected president, Michelle Bachelet) - that are beginning to disturb the sleep of Washington's right-wing policy makers and politicos.

One of them, Evo Morales of Bolivia, announced this week that his country would continue to grow coca. Morales, the first indigenous Bolivian to hold the country's highest office, is himself an ex-coca farmer. A quote from the article:

"I want to industrialise the production of coca and we will be asking the United Nations to remove coca leaf as a banned substance for export," he says. "That way, we can create markets in legal products such as tea, medicines and herbal treatments. There has even been research in Germany which shows that toothpaste made from coca is good for the teeth. That will then enable us to be tougher on the narco-traffickers. As I said, no to zero coca, yes to zero cocaine."

Given the long history of coca use in Bolivian society (see the article for considerable elaboration on this), Morales's stance makes perfect sense. And it would be hard to imagine any reasonable person taking issue with the approach outlined above, even the anti-drug zealots who hold forth from their perches in the U.S. capitol. But at this point, with the rise of so many adversaries in the southern hemisphere, it's probably a given that said Washingtonians won't be inclined to give an inch. Twits. But they'll get their just desserts.

Birth control

2006-02-09T02:20:00.000-06:00

Yes, we all wait anxiously for the day when the playing field is evened with the first male anal-suppository contraceptive...

The "how to use" demo for the het-boys could be an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the irony only adding to the fun. Then again, it's probably a safe bet that many of said individuals might be reluctant to shoulder the burden of contraception quite so willingly as their female counterparts have been all this time. There's a challenge for a canny advertising agency, if ever there was one.

But til then, here's yet another alternative to the pill for women. Has anyone tried this?

Where am I?

2006-02-09T02:19:00.000-06:00

(The first in a series.)

A cure for AIDS?

2006-02-09T02:14:00.000-06:00

You'd never guess it would have emanated from Utah.

Yeah, it's still early days, but it sounds intriguing.

Preliminary

2006-02-08T02:29:00.000-06:00

Test.