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 Wednesday, April 3, 2002
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wish i'd thought of that: The Hoopla500:
 The Hoopla500 is an experiment in text. Each entry is approximately 500 words in length, and topically can cover anything from absolute fiction to painfully detailed truth. It is not a diary, a weblog, an art project, a zine or a venue for storytelling. It defined most precisely as itself: the Hoopla500. Sometimes it may be pretentious, others self effacing, but the goal is simply that it will be. In other words, its existence is the sole justification and explanation of its purpose.  10:50:56 PM 
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onionscope:
Your theory regarding governmentmind-control devices is right, except for the part about the tinfoil helmets being an effective way to stop them.
Ok, ditch the tinfoil. What about duct tape? 10:38:26 PM
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nuts and bolts: They don't make 'em like this anymore. San Francisco's Musee Mecanique (I'm not even going to try to produce those accented characters, sorry) is going to have to find a new home. NPR ran a great piece about it this morning on Morning Edition (includes links to Real audio). It's cool that the Park Service is going to build a place for the museum, but it seems a shame to move it from its current way-cool location. What is the Park Service going to do with the current space? Put in a McDonald's? 10:31:06 PM
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blunt or pointed? Two versions of the story detailing Bush's foreign policy fumbles w/r/t Arafat are competing for attention on DayPop. The first, by Sonja Ross (AP), was posted yesterday and is pretty blunt:
Bush said Monday that the Palestinian leader's past as a peace negotiator exempts Arafat from the post-Sept. 11 U.S. policy that a country or entity that harbors terrorists will be dealt with as terrorists.
It is a loophole the president was wise to create for Arafat, analysts say, since a reality-based edit of Bush's edict was inevitable anyway.
Chalk one up for the "reality-based edit." Where can we find more of those?
The second version, posted today and written by Dan Balz and Dana Milbank, Washington Post staff writers, gives a more complete picture, but attempts a more "objective" tone by relying more exclusively on quotes from talking heads. However, they've found some very good talking heads:
Bush, [critics] point out, is not the first to use the with-us-or-against-us formulation. Vladimir Lenin used a similar phrase in his revolutionary writings: "He who is not with us is against us."
"This is Leninism," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser. "In sheer common sense, if someone is not with you, does that mean he's automatically against you? I don't think it's a good principle. Unfortunately, most of life cannot be delineated in terms of black and white. It's in various shades of gray, and foreign policy has to be sensitive to that."
Yes, yes! I'll take a case of "reality-based edits" and tons of gray, please. More more more! Now, where are those poll numbers showing how much we all love our shrub? I bet we hear some lower numbers soon... 10:09:20 PM
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daypop fun: Tom and Ray, the Car Talk guys, present the Worst Car of the Millennium. I won't spoil it for you -- just go see if you've owned one. If you want to see the top (er, bottom) 10, start here: p. 1, p. 2, p. 3, and p. 4. (Why did they have to divide it up into so many pages? Could it be that they wanted us all to view more ads? Nah. No one could be that user-hostile... could they?) 9:54:29 PM
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thoughtful takes: Glenn Kinen and Meryl Yourish offer some great, personal thoughts on the ongoing, seemingly interminable, Israeli-Palestinian crisis. I got there through Michael Bernstein (reached via Dave Winer), whose recent entries from Israel strike me as, well, eerie, I guess. I mean, it seems very strange that he could be there, where all this is going on, and yet sound so removed from it at the same time. It seems it's possible to be living in, or visiting, a city where people are being blown up, and yet still have to hear about it on the news. Is this what make his entries seem a little detached? I mean, what his entries confirm is that, to some extent, life goes on as "normal" for many people in Israel and Palestine -- they have dinner with their family and friends, have visitors from other countries, talk about politics, etc. And yet, "normal" for them includes.... war. And the U.S. is supposedly "at war" right now. And we're living our lives as "normal." And two plus two just doesn't equal four here. Things are very broken. 11:20:18 AM
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star wars in ascii: this is cool. find a telnet client and go to: telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
It takes some time to watch, but hellooo, retro! [via Small Dog's "Tech Tails" mail list] 10:29:49 AM
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| Mar May |
  
Top 10 hits for conspiracy on..
 | 5/6/02; 10:19:06 AM. |
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