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Monday, January 06, 2003 |
When the Sun Goes Down
I've been working my way through this 4-CD set, billed as the "secret history of rock & roll." It's a terrific set, and I'm only on disc three. I'm listening to each one 3 or 4 times before I go on to the next. The remastering is fantastic, everything sounds as crisp and clear as if it were recorded yesterday, but as intimate and real as you could want. Highly recommended.
The best review of it I've found is at http://www.music-critic.com/articles/whenthesun.html, you won't find much on RCA's own site, which is kind of scandalous,and a google search didn't turn up much. I heard about it through a review by Nat Hentoff in the Wall Street Journal last November.
10:35:01 PM Permalink
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Time for ban on human cloning is now. Atlanta Journal Constitution - "The Raelians want us to welcome Eve into the family. I think we ought to raise Cain." All in all it's probably not the best PR move for an atheist cult to dub its first offspring Eve. It might look as if they think they're God.[Google Health News]
While human cloning probably isn't a very good idea, a ban makes no sense, and won't have much effect. This is probably a publicity stunt, but it won't work out to much anyway. What happens when the kid grows up? People -- and clones are people -- have a nasty way of acting out their own lives, not the lives their parents want them to act out. Bruce Sterling makes this point very well and wisely in the first chapter of his latest book. I'll try to put in a quote tomorroow or the next day.
9:43:49 PM Permalink
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The 20 most annoying conservatives of 2002 [FARK]
5. Ari Fleischer There are those born into greatness, and there are those who have greatness thrust upon them. There are also those who lie about everything all the time. Guess which category Ari fits into? This man lies more easily than a fish swims.
9:36:32 PM Permalink
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The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush. Finally, you'll want to get your hands on a copy of The Right Man by axis-of-evil speechwriter David Frum right away! According the Matt Drudge et al, Frum calls the president a "tart" and reports that "One seldom heard an unexpected thought in the Bush White House or met someone who possessed unusual knowledge." What fun! [allconsuming.net]
9:30:27 PM Permalink
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George Orwell, here we come:. Declan McCullagh on what surveillance technology will be like in a decade: "...(T)he biggest problem with the criticism of the Total Information Awareness system is that it's too shortsighted. It's focused on what the Poindexters of the world can do with current database and information-mining technology. That includes weaving together strands of data from various sources--such as travel, credit card, bank, electronic toll and driver's license databases--with the stated purpose of identifying terrorists before they strike.
But what could Poindexter and the Bush administration devise in five or 10 years, if they had the money, the power and the will?" CNET [Follow Me Here...]
9:25:25 PM Permalink
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The Tyranny of the Tidy. The Tyranny of the Tidy: In college, after months of being chided by my roommate for an exceedingly messy room, I finally silenced her by repeatedly demonstrating my ability to quickly and easily retrieve any desired implement from the clutter without leaving my desk. Trying to be tidy always served only to make me inefficient. I understand that for others it may not be so, but is cleanliness really always a virtue? [MetaFilter]
The "tidy" always try to make it somehow a virture, and compare clutter to dirt, which isn't necessarily the case. It's the same way with those who like to get up early in the morning: they like to think that arising before dawn is somehow more virtuous than staying up late.
7:47:15 PM Permalink
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N.F.L. Admits Error, Too Late for Giants. The N.F.L. announced that its game officials erred on Sunday and that the Giants should have had one more play to avoid the league's second-worst playoff collapse. By Buster Olney. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
What a crock. But there's a good paragraph in the article:
In San Francisco, 49ers Coach Steve Mariucci offered a sarcastic response when told of the announcement: "Bummer." He added, more seriously, "Over the course of time, some are going to go your way, some are going to go the other way."
7:41:21 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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