rawdog

KDDI upgrades its mobile navigation services for pedestrians

(Thanks, Paul!)

Kilokat's Antique Light Bulb & Vacuum Tube Site
From the pre-1900 antique lamp bulbs to the Crookes and Geissler Tubes, box art and ephemera , I enjoyed exploring this man's magnificent obsession.

Another laundry list kind of day. Walked 4 miles, didn't write, Ted raked (yay Ted!), I did crunches and practiced...

Dive Into Python 4.4 is out. The preface -- which previously, and quite snottily, stated that this book assumed a lot about you and that if you were new to programming and wanted to learn Python, you should probably learn it somewhere else -- has been removed. We no longer assume a lot about you, apparently, beyond the ability to double-click and a willingness to blow $50 on a book you could download for free. (414 words)

ARNOLD NIXES T4....Arnold has decided to switch careers:The people of California want me to be their governor and I will do that and nothing else. There will be no time for movies, or anything else. I will pay full attention...

THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE GRIND SLOW....I just heard on CNN that the Justice Department expects the Plame investigation to take at least until the end of the year. As Atrios would say, oy....

MCCXIII is an excellent club in DC. But the reason I link their site is because I am in absolute awe of their web design.

Go Ahead And Leave Me, See If I Care! Was not what the late, great Jacques Brel sung. Oh no. (Scott Walker, imo, did the best cover.) And last Tuesday a 16-CD collection was launched, with all his songs - and then some, including 5 he specifically stated he never wanted released. I've heard two of the songs - they're wonderful. But the question remains, with echoes of Kafka telling his friend Max Brod to burn all his manuscripts: should the wishes of dead artists be respected? Does time - in this case 25 years since his death - make it any less problematic? Or the fact that the publication was approved by the Jacques Brel Estate, i.e., his widow? (My favourite Brel song, btw, is his wistful, sardonic tribute to his country: flat, boring Belgium: Le plat pays. It never fails to exercise the tear ducts, nope, never...)

Third Circuit nominee D. Michael Fisher to receive his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing next week: You can view the official notice of next Wednesday's hearing at this link. To increase the potential hijinks, a U.S. District Court nominee whose last n

Untranslatable: The Japanese version of Larry Lessig's blog reminds me that my name is apparently untranslatable. Those who would prefer to read Professor Lessig's blog post in English are welcome to click here.

Man, am I embarrassed about this....

Philips Electronics researchers have developed sensors that can measure body signals--like heart rate and temperature--that can be embedded into underwear. The sensors then connect to a chip module that monitors the vital signals and could potentially trigger local alarms or wirelessly link with a mobile phone.

"These sensors pick up electric signals in the body. They don't have to touch the skin and can be sown into clothes, which can be put in the laundry."

Link.

"Case raises questions about fetuses' rights; River Oaks couple wants state Supreme Court to extend wrongful death statutes to the stillborn": Yesterday, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram published this preview of an appeal argued today before the Supreme Cou

If you can bring a chimpanzee to court, then why not a parrot? Attorney Bill Dyer has this to say about a story that I previously mentioned here.

"Times files appeal of ruling on JOA losses": This article appears today in The Seattle Times. And The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports here that "Times appeals ruling in JOA dispute; 'No other choice,' says publisher of step taken against P-I's owner

"Federal court hears pot cases; Two appeals center on issues of states' and patients' rights." Claire Cooper, legal affairs writer for The Sacramento Bee, provides this report.

The Cubs defeat the Marlins 12-3. Alex Gonzalez of the Cubs had the biggest night, with two HR. Lofton had four hits and Simon three. Prior was good but not great, but this was a night for the offense. I...

A terrific victory by the Red Sox. Wakefield gave them a great start, and the bullpen didn't blow the game. They pitched well, they hit for power, and they beat the Yankees best starter. And they now have the home...

5-2! 'Nuff said. Well, except this: Could the Fox announcers possibly suck more?...

Normally I can't stand scare quotes, Chris Farley notwithstanding. But I have to admit that sometimes, they do their job perfectly. On the Fox broadcast of tonight's Red Sox-Yankees game, a reporter just interviewed a fan, one Ed Hillel, who said he had a good view of a fifth-inning Todd...

Just how large is 87 billion dollars exactly? It's this large, about the size of three costco warehouses by the looks of it.

"Now, this:" Neil Postman dies at 72, on the same day Americans elect a "talking hairdo" to high political office. If that doesn't seem ironic, you probably didn't read Amusing Ourselves to Death, his best-known book. But I did, and as I only realized today, it deeply and permanently affected my worldview. Anybody else? (via Atrios)

In Wednesday's newspapers: In The Washington Post, Charles Lane reports that "Md. Asserts Final Claim To Potomac; Va. Rejects Position in High Court Arguments." A related editorial is entitled "Potomac Follies." In other news, "Dismissal of Terror Char

Joe Buck's words as Millar drives in Ramirez. How many balls get by Jeter in the hole before someone realizes he can't play there anymore? Red Sox lead 5-0 in the 7th....

The Cubs haves scored 12 runs through six innings, and are slugging .967 for the game. Update: Alex Gonzalez of the Cubs hit his 2nd HR of the game and third of the series to make the score 12-2....

Tim Wakefield gives up only two hits, but walked Giambi and Williams to lead off the 7th. Alan Embree is in to get Posada. Update: Posada doubles to the opposite field to drive in Giambi. It's 5-1. Update: There was...

Normally I can't stand scare quotes, Chris Farley notwithstanding. But I have to admit that sometimes, they do their job perfectly. On the Fox broadcast of tonight's Red Sox-Yankees game, a reporter just interviewed a fan, one Ed Hillel, who said he had a good view of a fourth-inning fly...

"Man can claim items seized in bomb probe": Yesterday's edition of The New Haven Register contained this report. The Associated Press yesterday had a report headlined "Lawyer: Branford man no longer a suspect." And Thursday's edition of The Yale Daily

Available online at law.com: Tony Mauro reports that "Supreme Court Weighs Workplace Rights for Ex-Substance Abusers." And Jason Hoppin reports from the Ninth Circuit that "Latest Pot Argument May Go to Seed."

Top of the 6th, two base hits on infield balls to Yankee middle infielders. Soriano ranged behind 2nd base, but couldn't nip the runner. It was a tough play. But then Jeter dived at a ball to his right, and...

The Cubs are pounding the Marlins tonight. Penny did not get a batter in the third before we was lifted for Nate Bump. It's 8-0 Cubs in the top of the fifth. Mark Prior has given up some hits, but...

Alex Gonzalez is matching Sammy Sosa in HR. He just hit his 2nd of the series to put the Cubs up 10-0. Sammy homered earlier in the game....

David Ortiz got his first hit off Mussina tonight, a two run shot in the 4th. Todd Walker and Manny Ramirez added solo shots in the fifth to make it 4-0. Mussina only had one game this year where he...

Derek Lee breaks up the shut out with a solo HR. It's 11-1 in the 6th. The biggest blowout in LCS history was on 10/17/1996 as the Braves pounded the Cardinals 15-0....

On the Mass. Pike in Weston: More pix: Somebody cowboying up at the Topsfield Fair State House in Sox colors...

Stephen predicts: You can see it now: the gray overcast streets and the puddles of rain water filling the gutters;...

Andrew Cline at Rhetorica has a fascinating post on one way to improve the media: Teach these professional writers to better understand language. The habitual misuse of "rhetoric" is one good place to begin. Journalists trained in rhetoric might have had a better idea how Americans came to link Iraq...

Simson Garfinkel has written a great piece for Technology Review, describing the ways in which P2P technology could give us a more secure, stable, efficient Internet:

* One of the weakest points of the Internet right now is the domain name system, which is run by a loose confederation of name servers. Running DNS on top of a peer-to-peer system instead could dramatically improve its reliability.

* Today, if your business runs a small Web server and the site suddenly gets very popular, the server can crash from all of the extra traffic. But if all of the computers on the Internet were part of a global peer-to-peer Web cache, then small companies and individuals could publish their material to the multitudes. A good system would even prevent malicious modification of the Web page contents when they were served off other machines.

* In the event of a terrorist attack on the Internet’s infrastructure, a peer-to-peer system would be far more likely to recover than a system that depended on top-down control.

Both the Marlins and the Yankees get two hits in the 2nd. Both are threatening. Update: Prior gets out of his jam with two strikeouts....

NPR reported about an application called Concert Companion being used at the Aspen Music Festival. It's a Palm OS app that acts as a concert guide and updates concertgoers with information about what is being played, in real time.

The gadget has been tested by small groups at some performances. So far, it uses off-the-shelf Sony Clie (PEG-NX73V) PDAs as prototype, but the idea is to develop dedicated devices -- something concertgoers could rent for $7 or $10.
[Via DailyWireless]

Kilokat's Antique Light Bulb & Vacuum Tube Site
From the pre-1900 antique lamp bulbs to the Crookes and Geissler Tubes, box art and ephemera , I enjoyed exploring this man's magnificent obsession.

Creative Commons has launched a series of technology challenges -- LazyWeb ideas for tools that could really help the effort along.

* License metadata validation web application.
* License claim embedding specifications for more file types.
* APIs for Creative Commons license metadata.
* GUI for embedding license claims in files and generating claim verification RDF.
* Build Creative Commons licensing into more content creation applications.
* Browser toolbar or plugin that extracts and displays license metadata embedded in a page.
* Media player and file sharing applications that read, verify, and display license claims embedded in files.
* Add license search to a major commercial search engine.
* Write a custom Creative Commons license-aware search engine.

Eli the Bearded sez, "Long, detailed writeup of webserver getting 0wned by a sophisticated spammer. Through a PHP product security hole a webserver was converted to a full time spam machine following orders from a remote server. The author of this paper has found that this is not an isolated event and apparently has been going on for months. Got a server? Keep it patched, including any silly little add-ons like the photo gallery bit that got subverted here." 60k PDF Link (Thanks, Eli!)

Chuck just started his treatment for cancer. Wish him well, folks.

Both the Marlins and the Yankees get two hits in the 2nd. Both are threatening....

Mussina seems to be a bit wild tonight. I don't have a count, but he doesn't seem to be getting his first pitch over. Update: Nixon walks on four pitches. Mussina has thrown more balls than strikes now. Update: After...

Randall Simon singels with the bases loaded and two outs to give the Cubs a 2-0 lead in the first inning. He's 5 for 13 with four rbi in the playoffs now....

Tim Wakefield puts the Yankees down in order. Everyone's hitting the ball, but not hard....

Florida works Prior a bit, getting him to throw 23 pitches, 15 for strikes. He strikes out two and walks one, and gives up a hit to Derek Lee. No run damage, however....

Some blogs, like ours, cover a broad range of topics. Others do not. They pick one niche, and cover it extremely well. Here are two such blogs, finely named and highly recommended: The Blog of Death: Every day, Jade Walker posts condensed obits, rich with links if you're interested in...

A third-rate bugging? Did Pennsylvania Republicans plant listening devices to gain an advantage in the next Philadelphia mayoral election? I think they did and in his words, that's the truth!

"Junkie Justice: Are drug addicts covered under the ADA?" Dahlia Lithwick has this report at Slate on an oral argument that occurred today before the U.S. Supreme Court. It's only the second day of argument in the October 2003 Term, and already an exper

"The Supreme Court Rules": Michael M. Uhlmann has this essay in the October 2003 issue of First Things.

Pros: "before" apartments make my old bachelor pad look downright stylish. (38 words)

Pierre starts this game the same way, grounding out to the 2nd baseman....

The Red Sox put the ball in play, but right at someone. Mussina retires them in order....

The game is underway with Walker grounding out to Soriano. I actually like this lineup without Damon a lot more than the ones they used against Oakland....

DirecTV has the Red Sox-Yankees game on FX, so I can only watch one game! ARRRRRG!...

CAT UPDATE....I continue to betray my cats' trust. Today I stuffed Jasmine into a box, drove her to that strange antiseptic room she hates so much, and then paid some people to stick needles into her. She's not happy about...

TEXAS REDISTRICTING....Well, I was hoping the Texas Republicans would just keep hitting each over the head forever, but no such luck:Texas House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement in principle Wednesday to redraw the state's congressional boundaries, settling a dispute...

I have long felt that the risk of substantial casualties from non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction (I even disagree with this moniker for chemical and biological weapons) has been overblown. Noah Shachtman agrees. Lost in the hullabaloo over David Kay's report on Iraq's unconventional arms are some pretty basic questions....

WiFi-SM is "a Wi-Fi-capable patch you stick on your body so you can feel painful shocks whenever news stories are published containing keywords that you enter into the software". (via Mikes List) Who needs this when we have MetaFilter?...

"Supreme Court Considers Alaskan EPA Case": Gina Holland of The Associated Press provides this report.

As you’ve probably seen on the news, Mark Kleiman’s blog has moved. Update your blogroll.

It just struck me that if all your information about America came from political blogs, you’d think the country was composed mainly of libertarians together with a bloc of right-wing populist-imperialists and a few liberals here and there. But if all your information about California came from political blogs, you’d think the state’s politics must be a model of thoughtful right- and left-leaning commentary, marked by a care for civility, a tendency to moderation and a close attention to detail.

Just goes to show.

I have long felt that the risk of substantial casualties from non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction (I even disagree with this moniker for chemical and biological weapons) has been overblown. Noah Shachtman agrees. Lost in the hullabaloo over David Kay's report on Iraq's unconventional arms are some pretty basic questions....

Last updated 2003-10-08 17:01:02.463827-07

Because I want to find it again, a quick rundown on how to make things that burn in colors using readily available chemicals, nicked from MetaFilter, the entry and comments have a few more suggestions.

Rather be in Philadelphia? The Associated Press reports here that "Federal law enforcement officials today confirmed that listening devices found in the offices of Mayor John F. Street were planted by the FBI - a discovery that touched off a political fu

That Noonan-stalking funnyman, TBogg, alerts us to the fact that Aaron Bailey over at The Corner—excuse me, the Bad People...

"How the Public Feels About the Ten Commandments": Blogger Clayton Cramer examines the results of several recent Gallup polls.

Today at the U.S. Supreme Court: Gina Holland of The Associated Press reports here that "Court Weighs Rights of Recovering Addicts." The Financial Times reports here that "Companies eye test cases on clean air and disability." And The AP reports from A

Ken Starr wins in the Federal Circuit against Walt Disney, ABC, and ESPN: You can access today's ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit at this link. The opinion explains that "The present case concerns technology for the synchroniz

Fourth Circuit places federal government's appeal in the Zacarias Moussaoui case on the fast track: See this order filed today.

On the Mass. Pike in Weston:...

The whole thing is worth reading, but I’m just going to quote two paragraphs from a fascinating New Yorker article about people who commit suicide off of the Golden Gate bridge.

O'Reilly "self-terminates" interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" In an apparent effort to balance having had Al Franken last week, NPR's "Fresh Air" asked Bill O' Reilly to appear on today's show. Apparently, O'Reilly eventually decided that it was too much of an "attack" interview, and left.

The Confluence Project aims to "visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location." Includes stories from each documented point.

But nudity is part of our culture! In a rare move, a French advertising sector association has called on underwear manufacturer Triumph to withdraw a billboard campaign for its Sloggi range, which has been widely condemned as offensive to women. The fear among advertisers is that the ad with its explicit exposure of the models' buttocks will prompt the government to replace the existing system of industry self-regulation with laws on what can and cannot be portrayed in ads.

Some pretty good lines here:

• "It's the strip-tease context which is the problem in the Sloggi ads. ... It is very damaging for the image of advertising," said Joseph Besnainou
• "Since the 19th century, the dress code of prostitutes has tended to set the tone for women as a whole," feminist author Florence Montreynard told LCI television.
• "These models are beautiful by some criteria, but their buttocks are those of adolescents rather than of real women. Are women supposed to get a complex about that?"
• "But nudity will always be used in adverts in France," he said. "It's part of our culture."

The results are in! the MeFi guesses weren't too far off, and Escher wins the domokun, while ook wins the booby prize.

In news from Georgia: Today's issue of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports here that "Ruling could speed execution of 10 inmates" and here that "Perdue's faith-based plan would clear impediments to school vouchers."

"Court Strikes Down Grandparent Rights Law": The Associated Press provides this report on a decision that the Supreme Court of Iowa issued today.

Should the government be liable for lightning strikes or shark attacks? According to this article published today in The Orlando Sentinel, today the Supreme Court of Florida heard oral argument in a case presenting that question.

No, it can’t be! I thought … and it wasn’t. Some other bloke .

It's only a few hours until the puck finally drops on the start of the NHL regular season. It was...

That Noonan-stalking funnyman, TBogg, alerts me to the fact that Aaron Bailey over at The Corner—excuse me, the Bad People...

"Refuge ruling for abused immigrant": Bob Egelko reports in today's issue of The San Francisco Chronicle that "A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that some illegal immigrants who flee spousal abuse in their homeland can find refuge in the United State

"No-call list dials up a win - for now; FTC can activate registry amid free-speech appeal": Today's edition of The Denver Post contains this article.

Ari doesn'tunderstand how the Times could endorse the Sox: Just in case you need another reason to pick up the...

Andy reports: Ann and I watched all three games sitting in the exact same places. I, on the floor usually...

Ron is lovin' it: We like it when baseball season begins and when the Sox get into these play off...

why the lucky stiff: Now, I'll tell you upfront. This match is rigged. The deck is stacked against XML. I just threw together an Atom2YAML converter. Atom = 12 MB. YAML = 6 MB. I only have to do 50% of the work. And these are awful YAML documents. Give me an afternoon and we'll be down to 5MB with some fragrance.

The goal is to support these queries.  It will be interesting to see how _why handles the second one given that he is currently cheating on the content element.  ;-)

Looking over this list of corruption levels by country, it is evident that there is some correlation between corruption and quality of life. But which is cause and which is effect? And since these numbers are only relative, are things getting better overall, or worse? How corrupt is your country?

This animation shows that biologically and socially relevant information about a person can be conveyed in biological motion patterns. You can adjust the moving figure in four areas: male/female, heavy/light, nervous/relaxed, and happy/sad. While I was intrigued by the concept, I'm not completely sure that the moving figure conveyed the state I had intended.
(I found using 'lines' provided a clearer image of someone walking)

They fixed my boo-boo. (warning - graphic pix)
Did you ever see this picture? It makes the email forwarding rounds ever so often, and is a fixture in the pro-life community. Taken in 1999, it shows a tiny hand touching the finger of one of the doctors involved in a spina bifida corrective operation. At the time, the fetus was 21 weeks old. Late last month, Samuel Armas (the boy the fetus became) testified briefly before a subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee examining scientific and medical advances in prenatal surgery. [more inside]

Law Professor Lawrence Solum reports on the Ninth Circuit's most recent medical marijuana oral argument: You can access his report on yesterday's oral argument at this link. And Bob Egelko reports in today's edition of The San Francisco Chronicle that "M

Byung-Hyun Kim and Adrian Brown have been left off the Boston roster for the ALCS in favor of Jeff Suppan and Todd Jones. They must have a lot of confidence in Damon coming back to leave Brown off. The Sox...

URL UPDATE....Mark Kleiman has joined the vast migration away from Blogger and now has a new address:http://www.markarkleiman.comUpdate your bookmarks....

Amitai Etzioni has a post up about workplace relationships, which addresses a number of genuine issues, and it certainly says far more about me than anything else that I can’t stop giggling about them.

The communitarian position on workplace relationships is not, as I’d expected, the unequivocal condemnation that one might have expected (simply on the basis that a random sampling of communitarian position papers suggested to me that they might be against anything fun). It’s quite nuanced and well worth a read. It’s all very easy to get all moralistic and say that this, that or the other kind of relationship is “off limits”, but to be frank, with working culture going the way it’s going, where the hell else are we going to meet people our own age?

Update: To make it clearer, the post is specifically about the University of California’s code of employment which basically is meant to stop professors from interfering with the cargo. I have to say it seems like an extraordinary imposition to me:

“However, as one professor argues, the rules are necessary because of the power gap that exists between professors and students, which precludes such relationships from ever being truly consensual. “

Is it just me, or is this unbelievable balderdash? Are we really trying to claim that a relationship between a dashing young prof and a graduate student can never be “truly consensual”? Only according to a standard by which there have been approximately five “truly consensual” relationships in the history of sex. You don’t have to be Michel Foucault to see through this one.

No word on whether they'll ever actually put these into production, but a concept design for a new handheld from Fujitsu turned up at at the CEATAC trade show in Japan this week. Called the .U Pocket PDA, it runs on Windows CD .NET, and has a high-resolution 800x600 display, built-in Bluetooth and WiFi, a digital camera, and both CF and SD expansion card slots. Read...

Welcome, Alberto Escarlate, to the Smart Mobs blogteam.

KDDI upgrades its mobile navigation services for pedestrians

(Thanks, Paul!)

Texting becomes smart-mobbier when people are able to affiliate with others who share their interests. SMS.AC appears to be centered on that most popular of shared interests, flirting, but it appears that members can participate in a variety of mobile community applications using SMS (i.e., short message service or text messaging) and MMS (multimedia messaging service).  One of the applications is smsClubs, which gives members the opportunity to participate in group discussions with others who share a common interest.

This is really, really f------ brilliant. The FCC says the f-word is OK on network TV, as long as it doesn't refer to the sexual act. Naturally, some groups don't like dirty talk. Is this a sea change in the level of discourse, or is the FCC finally acknowledging that it's useless to protect kids from our favorite four-letter word? (Second link is a .pdf file.)

From RobPongi's blog, which features lots of streaming media oddities from Japan and other Asian countries: "This is a very shocking anti-American propoganda video made by North Koreans and previously broadcast on South Korean and Japanese Television." Don't miss the part right after George W. Bush's head morphs into a bloodsucking vampire monkey, where they call America an "audacious" country that "stole the Olympic gold Medal from us." Link

Game 1 of the ALCS pits Tim Wakefield against Mike Mussina. Giambi vs. Wakefield offers a good example of the versatility of the NY offense. Wakefield shuts Giambi down in the conventional sense. Jason is 13 for 59 against Wakefield,...

BUSH'S RHETORIC....Just in case this post from yesterday — "noted without comment" — needed a note after all, Jack O'Toole provides it. Thanks, Jack....

If Alanis Morrisette is looking for a new song to write, we offer The Ballad of Timothy Treadwell....

In case you're having trouble keeping track, Brighthand has a helpful chart detailing all the new handhelds that are coming out this fall. Read...

Neil McIntosh of the Guardian just got a first look at the new Voq Smartphone from Sierra Wireless which was unveiled today:stacked flash memory which means that - combined with a much-improved and adapted version of Microsoft's Smartphone software - the experience is much more snappy. There are some nice features Sierra Wireless has added on top of the OS, too, including a very fast and easy way to file and retrieve information locally, and from the web/network. The most obvious hardware feature is its fold-out keyboard: a QWERTY effort divided by a big, solid hinge. It's reasonably fast to peck out a message - certainly, much better than an alphanumeric keypad or even the SPV's fabric keyboard - although don't expect to be touch-typing. But the device is also light - lighter than the SPV? - if slightly taller, and around the same thickness.Read...

Note that we've discontinued flash mob coverage, although there have been outbreaks in India and apparently continues to be of interest in Russia. However, this interview with "Bill," the instigator of the first Manhattan flashmobs, is fun and mildly informative.

(Thanks, Christina!)

LookMob appears to be a plan to combine smart mobs and culture jamming. So far, it's a plan. We'll be interested in observing what happens.

Nigerians used SMS messages to organize a boycott against GSM tariffs that were elevating mobile telephone service rates. Here, the organizer speaks out, making the interesting connection with the use of SMS to organize demonstrations against the Estrada regime in the Philippines.

(Thanks, Stephen)

The Book of Roofs is a site to take your time with. Originally an art installation, the web site is a look at the concept of roofs - anthropological, biological, spiritual, metaphysical, social and political - in a collection of "roof tiles" consisting of short articles, personal narratives, mythological references, quotes, historic events, video and photographs, all related to the concept of shelter. If you feel so moved you can even contribute your own tile. Flash and sound

"Court upholds state's ban on same-sex marriage": The Associated Press has this news from Arizona. I have more details on this ruling immediately below.

BREAKING NEWS -- Arizona Court of Appeals holds that State's prohibition of same-sex marriage violates neither the federal nor the state constitution: You can access today's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the Arizona Court of Appeals Division

Dan used to live six blocks from Wrigley field, but recently moved to a place eight blocks from Fenway Park:...

RECALL TURNOUT....If you want to know why the recall polls were all so screwy before the election, take a look at this:The Field poll estimated Tuesday that as many as 10 million California voters, about two-thirds of all those registered,...

How's this for a phyrric victory: Accused 09/11 conspirator, Zacarias Moussaoui had demanded that, in preparation for his trial, he be allowed to interview wartime prisoners at GITMO and other "enemy combatants". The judge ordered access for Moussaoui. The government refused. As a result: Last week, U.S. District Judge Leonie...

This morning from an AFB story regarding the Wilson/Plame Affair: Wilson spoke out after he was sent to Niger to investigate claims -- aired by Bush in a major speech in January -- that Iraq had tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons from the African state. The former diplomat...

Gateway is expanding its line up of home entertainment electronics, adding two more LCD televisions (a 13-inch and a 30-inch model) and a 1,000-watt home theater system called the KAS-303 which comes with a DVD player, a receiver, six surround sound speakers, and a subwoofer. Read...

Pioneer is coming out with a new AV receiver called the VSA-AX10Ai-N that has support for Microsoft's new Windows Meda Audio 9 Professional format built-in. This means it can stream WMA 9 Pro files from a PC, including audio files in 5.1 channel surround sound. Combined with the recent news that Microsoft is trying to get its Windows Media Video 9 format accepted as an industry standard for video compression, this gives a pretty good indication that the next big push for Microsoft will be to get their software running on as many stereos and DVD players as possible. Read...

Is Howard Dean conducting viral marketing? [more inside]

BREAKING NEWS -- Arizona Court of Appeals holds that State's prohibition of same-sex marriage violates neither the federal nor the state constitution You can access today's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the Arizona Court of Appeals Division

From down in New Haven, Richie froths: Until the Yankees dispose of the awful , cheating , classless Red Sox...

Ryan notes that the traffic signs on the turnpike now flash "GO RED SOX" and "COWBOY UP:" [D]oes not mean...

THE PRESIDENTIAL MANAGEMENT STYLE....At Monday's press briefing, reporters asked if Donald Rumsfeld was involved in the decision to put Condoleezza Rice in overall charge of Iraqi reconstruction:Secretary Rumsfeld and Ambassador Bremer have been very involved in this process as we've...

Juan Non-Volokh said that Joe Lieberman said something false on the weekend:

For example, Lieberman stated that the Bush Administration’s “Clear Skies” proposal to reform the Clean Air Act “actually would increase pollution” … He’s wrong … and should know better as a member of the Senate Environment Committee.

First, the proposed “Clear Skies” legislation will reduce utility emissions of NOx and SOx by around 70 percent. As I have noted before, the worst that can be said of “Clear Skies” is that it will reduce utility emissions marginally less than they might be reduced under current law – I say “might” because current projections presume that the current regulatory process will stay on schedule, and this is unlikely. Either way, this is not a policy that “actually would increase pollution.”

My first thought was that there’s a meaning for ‘increase’ that Lieberman could be using here. On second thoughts, I’m not so sure, but the semantic question is pretty interesting I think, at least if you’re a semi-professional semanticist.

Cellphones have gotten so small that some of the prisoners at one of Britain's high security prisons have been successfully hiding their phones from guards by keeping them in, ahem, their "body crevices." Which we'll just leave it at that. Though it does raise the question, as the reader who sent this in notes, of where exactly they're hiding their cellphone chargers. Maybe we don't want to know. Read [Thanks, Adam]...

You may recall from last month our somewhat quixotic quest to get FCC Chairman (and confirmed gadgetphile) Michael Powell to check out Gizmodo. Well we can report back with pleasure that the Chairman is indeed a Gizmodo reader now. It turns out that Richard Diamond, the Deputy Director of the FCC's Office of Media Relations (and a fan of Gizmodo), saw our plea and personally turned the Chairman on to our site. Right on!...

"Can Va.'s governor sip from Potomac? Justices grill Md.'s lawyer in centuries-old dispute over who owns the river; Great Falls intake sparked case." This article appears in today's edition of The Baltimore Sun.

"Sodomy and 'don't ask, don't tell' go to court": Phil Carter, a UCLA law student and former Army officer, offers these thoughts at his blog "Intel Dump" on yesterday's oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

No litigation is expected to arise challenging the results of yesterday's recall election vote in California: So reported CNN at the top of the hour. One look at the results perhaps explains why. (Notably, Larry Flynt is leading Gary Coleman in the bat

Today's Ten Commandments news: From Ohio, The Dayton Daily News reports here today that "Ten Commandments debate may arise; Lawmaker wants state to affirm it as vital to government." From Wyoming, The Associated Press reports here that "Casper council t

Jody says her son's after-school program sends home a note: Junior's after school daycare place sent home notices last night...

Stephen defines the battle: Sox fans bring a much higher degree of moral clarity to the fight: make no mistake...

Sheila checks in from New Jersey: I will go to the pub in Hoboken, filled with refugee Red Sox fans...

The Gothamist: reports: As if Mayor Bloomberg didn't have enough problems, New Yorkers are doubting his loyalty to the New...

No, really, they do (free registration required), although as some spoilsport notes, they are a part owner of the Sox....

FINAL RECALL WORDS....I don't have a whole lot to say about how the recall is going to shake out, but I do have a few things to say about it. First, some good news: both Proposition 53 and Proposition 54...

Amitai Etzioni has a post up about workplace relationships, which addresses a number of genuine issues, and it certainly says far more about me than anything else that I can’t stop giggling about them.

The communitarian position on workplace relationships is not, as I’d expected, the unequivocal condemnation that one might have expected (simply on the basis that a random sampling of communitarian position papers suggested to me that they might be against anything fun). It’s quite nuanced and well worth a read. It’s all very easy to get all moralistic and say that this, that or the other kind of relationship is “off limits”, but to be frank, with working culture going the way it’s going, where the hell else are we going to meet people our own age?

From the front page of yesterday’s Boston Metro:

Rice to get bigger hand in Iraq

Cellphones have gotten so small that some of the prisoners at one of Britain's high security prisons have been successfully hiding their phones from guards by keeping them in, ahem, their "body crevices." Which we'll just leave it at that. Though it does raise the question, as the reader who sent this in notes, of where exactly they're hiding their cellphone chargers. Maybe we don't want to know. Read [Thanks, Adam]...

Saving Private Lynch From Misinformation.
John Fasano (screenwriter of such classics as Darkness Falls, Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, and Another 48 Hours) offers a very interesting caveat regarding his in-production film about the icon apparent (or not) of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This begs the question: With a public undoubtedly waiting for this made-for-TV movie to know "what really happened to Jessica" and such a blurred line between truth and propaganda, is this responsible movie-making? Many Americans turn to Hollywood for their history lessons, so I have to wonder...

The Bloviator is upset with Mayor Bloomberg. Seems to me Bloomberg knows what's good for him. :-)...

Daniel Drezner is getting angrier about the Plame case. This is the Bush quote that got him worked up:

I mean this town is a — is a town full of people who like to leak information. And I don’t know if we’re going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there’s a lot of senior officials. I don’t have any idea. I’d like to. I want to know the truth. That’s why I’ve instructed this staff of mine to cooperate fully with the investigators — full disclosure, everything we know the investigators will find out. I have no idea whether we’ll find out who the leaker is — partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers. But we’ll find out.

Jack O’Toole writes:

Okay, let’s try to sort all this out with a thought experiment. In our scenario, it’s September of 2001, and this is what we’re hearing from our president:

“I don’t know if we’re going to find out who killed all those Americans in New York and Washington,” Bush said. “I don’t have any idea. I’d like to. I want to know the truth.”

But, Bush said, “International terrorism is a large thing, and there’s a lot of terrorists.”

Pretty ridiculous, huh? You can’t even imagine it. The Man from Crawford just doesn’t talk like that when evil is loose in the land, when serious crimes involving our national security have been committed. So isn’t it reasonable, important even, to ask why he’s suddenly talking that way now?

Incidentally, for those poor confused souls who aren’t sure that Plame really was undercover, there’s a Washington Post profile that might help clear that up:

Her activities during her years overseas remain classified, but she became the creme de la creme of spies: a “noc,” an officer with “nonofficial cover.” Nocs have cover jobs that have nothing to do with the U.S. government. They work in business, in social clubs, as scientists or secretaries (they are prohibited from posing as journalists), and if detected or arrested by a foreign government, they do not have diplomatic protection and rights. They are on their own. Even their fellow operatives don’t know who they are, and only the strongest and smartest are picked for these assignments.

But isn’t the real story… um…

I assume it's part of an art exhibit, 'cause I can't imagine any way you can get a vehicle like that up there accidentally. This was lying on its side off Mission on the north side of _Moscone Center_ yesterday as I walked back from the hardware store.

Over at _Not Safe For Work_ (http://notsafeforwork.net/mt/) there's an interesting screed against safewords. Worth a read for anyone who likes to play in dangerous spaces: The BDSM community tries to fetishize safety, and deifies safewords and mantras like "Safe, Sane and Consensual" as if they were some kind of replacement for personal responsibility. At worst, safewords are a PR stunt, a way to try and convince ourselves that what we're doing is softer and...[truncated]

Last updated 2003-10-08 09:11:07.745472-07

Official map showing counties where Schwarzenegger won.

Of course the American League is not a "real" league, but if it were, Boston fans could teach the rest of the country a thing or two (except the Mets). Red Sox fans might say: Hell or high water, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, etc etc. The fans have a philosophy. "We lose but we love." And what a stadium. This year the losers have a chance to win. Even better, the perennial National League losers, the Chicago Cubs, have a chance too. All things being equal, there's only a 25 percent chance of the dream series, but the Baseball God is especially powerful and good at making deals with the other gods. And of all the gods he has the worst sense of humor (or the best depending on how you look at it).

Weblogging, the fad most poplular amongst teenage girls, is dying. The "blogosphere" will number ten million souls by the end of 2004, but almost all of them will be dead.

Rob's Giant BonusCard Swap Meet is a site where you enter in your Giant grocery-chain "loyalty card" number and the site responds by serving you a printable barcode for someone else's loyalty card number. Paste the barcode over your own and help poison the Giant database. Link

The 2003 ALCS presents two teams with very versatile offenses. The two teams hit for average; this means if they go up against pitchers with great control, they can still put baserunners on. The get on base; if the pitcher...

Matt Phelps, another member of the SOMBILLA, contributes this verse: Ortiz comes alive Johnny Damon inspires Sox win in six games And Jamie Bakum reponds to the pro-Sox poetry with a look at the LCS: Boston fans lucky Oakland plays...

MIT Tech Review has a weblog. No permalinks, no RSS.

US TV news too liberal, say Americans. Nearly half of Americans think its news media is too liberal despite the rise of controversial hard-right cable channel Fox News. Only 14% of Americans believe the media to be too conservative, according to a poll by Gallup.

"U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear lawyer's appeal; Justices won't rule on the punishment of Hoosier attorney." Today's edition of The Indianapolis Star reports here that "The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to decide whether an Indiana court's disciplin

In the wake of a lawsuit over "deceptive" hard-drive marketing in which it is alleged that hard-drive vendors mis-label the capacity of their products to make them seem larger than they really are, the tech site Wiebetech has published an easy-to-follow paper explaining the discrepancy. I wonder if it will be introduced as evidence in the hearing?

We’ve finally determined the math used by the operating system, which has converted our drive from a capacity of 123.5GB to a capacity of 115.04GB. The mystery is solved. This handy formula may be used by anyone for converting decimal GigaBytes to binary GigaBytes (with decimal representation). The mathematical conversion works the other way around as well, as shown below:

115.GB x 1,073,741,824 = 123,522,415,614 decimal bytes (assuming all digits of precision are used in the 115GB). (This allows conversion from operating system GigaBytes to Hard Drive Manufacturer GigaBytes).

A new rechargable miniature (2.9 mm X 13 mm) battery intended for implanted medical appliances is shipping. The battery lasts 10 years, and is recharged when the body part it resides in is placed alongside an electrified pillow, which remotely juices up the cell.

"In the treatment of urinary incontinence, which is an area Quallion is focused on, the stimulation has to be delivered all day long so there's no good place to put an external coil," Loeb said.

The Quallion team decided to focus on urinary incontinence partly because the problem requires constant stimulation, but also because millions of people suffer from it.

"There are more adult's diapers sold in the world than children's ones," Fong said

A Federal court has ordered the Minnesota telco regulator to stop treating Voice Over IP providers as though they were phone companies. This has been an area of great concern, since it made it appear that the Internet was going to come under the thumb of the thoroughly captured telco regulators, who'd trash our last great hope for bankrupting the telcos while insisting on the local equivalent of horseshoes for steam-engines.

The Minnesota PUC's August decision required Vonage to file with the commission as a telephone company, to receive official certification from the PUC in order to operate in the state and to begin making payments to support 911 service administration.

Gregg Easterbrook isn't happy with the choices network television is giving him when it comes to Sunday football viewing: And,...

John Lott, the author of Bias Against Guns, has taken a hard look at Rush Limbaugh's claim that the media...

If you can't get enough low-end in your music, Skullcandy, the makers of those headphones that connect to both an MP3 player and a cellphone, has a new pair of special battery powered bass amplification headphones out called the Skullcrushers that actually have vibration subwoofer speakers built-in. Read [Thanks, Marc]...

And not to be left out, LG Electronics says they have their own Microsoft Smartphone on the way, and this one sounds really fresh: it has a 1.1 megapixel digital camera, 192MB of RAM, and can record up to an hour of video. Should be out by the end of the year. Anyone see any pictures of this yet? Read UPDATE: We just found a picture of this, and it's pretty obvious that this is actually a Pocket PC Phone, not a Smartphone. The two operating systems are similar, but not the same. We do dig that sliding keypad, though....

"Military Court Hears Appeal to Anti-Sodomy Rule": NPR's "All Things Considered" provided this report (Real Audio required) yesterday evening.

"K Street enters fray over bench; At urging of GOP, business sets aside reluctance to fight": Today's edition of The Hill contains this report.

Patrick "e-sheep" Farley has published the third installment of his brilliant, scathing Apocamon strip, in which he interprets Revelations through Pokemon characters.

He's opted to charge $0.25 for 30 days' access to the strip, using the BitPass system that Scott McCloud was touting a little while ago. Of course, BitPass requires that you buy a $3.00 prepaid "card" in order to give Patrick his $0.25, and there's precious little else I want to buy with my remaining $2.75, so as far as I'm concerned, I've just spent $3 on this Apocamon installment, and as far as I'm concerned, it was worth it -- I'd pay that much for a comic book this good any day.

On the other hand, I'd own the comic book and be able to read it whenever I want to. Patrick's charging $0.25 or $3.00 (depending on how you squint at it) for 30 days' worth of access to his funnybook. Now, if I could only figure out a way to give Patrick the remaining $2.75 for permanent access (preferably without giving any money to BitPass). Link

The Bass Station is an old-school boom-box with a WiFi access-point built in, along with:

a 120GB hard drive, and an MP3 decoder, and that is controlled using a web browser. Besides being able to play MP3s, it can also stream audio to other devices in its local area network, double as a file-server for file-sharing.

Ashley Highfield, Director of BBC New Media & Technology, gave a speech on Monday at the Royal Television Society about the nature of the BBC's ambitious and grand Internet plans. It's a stunner of a talk, filled with extreme sensibleness:

Downloading and sharing this video is the final piece of the jigsaw and will create a killer combination that I believe could undermine the existing models of pay-TV.

The killer combination is broadband together with digital TV and PVRs, plus the ability to share this video in the same peer-to-peer model with which music files are exchanged on the net...

We are exploring legitimate peer-to-peer models to get our users to share our content, on our behalf, amongst themselves, transparently.

And as an industry, we should be more active in creating legitimate content download products, whether that's as a pay-model, or rights-cleared for free. We need to help consumers leap-frog the illegal downloading issues that have wrecked havoc on the music industry. Here's what we believe is the shape of things to come, a way for people to search for whatever they are interested in -- perhaps in the case of a natural history for a school project -- searching from Buffalos to Bears -- and then download it for their use.

Instapundit (who is pro-guns) calls Howard Dean a political genius for his pro Second Amendment views, which are drawing fire from some Democrats. He notes that "being attacked by ... on gun control will be a big plus in the general election if Dean gets the nomination. Democrats will vote for him anyway, and it'll help him with the many moderates put off by the gun-prohibitionist mindset of the Democratic Party."

Meanwhile Philip Greenspun, who is obviously not a gun afficionado more or less agrees (albeit with a certain flippant and sardonic air):

"Why are gun laws so important?  Consider Johnny Paycheck.  He has no freedom of speech, at least if he wants to keep his job.  He has no freedom of action; a hierarchy of managers tells him what to do all day every day.  Johnny Paycheck has no wealth; all of his income goes for rent and payments on his SUV.  He has no pension; his retirement mutual fund is being eviscerated by managerial looting at American public companies.  Johnny spends about 40% of his income on various taxes so that rich people don't have to pay taxes.

Why does Johnny support the Republicans then, the party of corporate looters and tax cuts for rich people?  He expects rich people and the government to take away all of his money and freedom, regardless of which party is in power.  The difference to him is that the Republicans will allow him to keep his gun, the one shred of personal dignity that he has left.  The Democrats want to take away Johnny's gun, his last vestige of personal freedom and manhood.

Jeff Miller of the Miami Herald pays homage to Mike Lowell as a team player, and disparages Jimmy Buffett as a traitor: No kidding. Mr. Margaritaville, the man who wrote a song entitled Floridays, who called one of his albums...

George King of the NY Post calls it Christmas in October: Christmas in October. How else can you describe getting the Red Sox and Yankees in the ALCS? You can't. Starting tonight at a sold-out and raucous Yankee Stadium the...

And I thought only Boston sports writers did this. Maybe Phil Rogers is in the wrong town: Perhaps the most disquieting moment of the night for the Cubs came in the ninth inning. Second baseman Mark Grudzielanek lost control of...

Australian brothels are stocking up on whips and karaoke machines in anticipation of a boom in business generated by this month's Rugby World Cup, a sex industry spokesman revealed.

Last updated 2003-10-08 07:31:03.183723-07

The audio on laptops is notoriously pretty lousy, partly because there isn't a whole lot of space for putting in a decent sound card, but mainly because manufacturers know they can get away with it. The Register reviews a gadget that tries to rectify the situation, Creative's SoundBlaster MP3+, a 16-bit external sound card for adding high-fidelity audio to laptops. The SoundBlaster MP3+ connects via a USB port and has both analog and digital output ports, and line-in ports for digitizing vinyl or making audio recordings. Not the best possible external sound card you could get for your laptop (it lacks surround sound, for instance), but The Reg says it's a good value for the money. Read...

And not to be left out, LG Electronics says they have their own Microsoft Smartphone on the way, and this one sounds really fresh: it has a 1.1 megapixel digital camera, 192MB of RAM, and can record up to an hour of video. Should be out by the end of the year. Anyone see any pictures of this yet? Read...

So the crazy rumors were true: as we reported yesterday it turns out that the new Microsoft Smartphone is from Sierra Wireless. The Voq Professional Phone is a bit larger, heavier, and uglier than we'd hoped, and doesn't have Bluetooth or a digital camera, but it does have one design twist we hadn't seen on a phone before: the numeric keypad flips open to reveal a mini QWERTY keyboard. Otherwise the Voq is about standard for a Smartphone. It has a GSM/GPRS phone with a 200MHz processor, 32MB of RAM, a 200x176 pixel color screen, and an SD expansion card slot. And as you can probably guess from the name, the Voq is aimed at business users rather than the consumer market. Read [Via MSMobiles]...

Jean-Christophe Rampal is a freelance French journalist. In August, he interviewed Howard Rheingold by e-mail. Now, this has been published by EPOK, the cultutal monthly magazine produced by FNAC, the largest french retailer for books, records and electronics.

EPOK published this interview in October 2003. And as this magazine doesn't have an online presence, they allowed me to reproduce this article.

Here is a link to both the french and english versions of this interview.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decides the latest installment of Amway Corp. v. The Procter and Gamble Co.: The "Factual Background" section of today's opinion begins:Recitation of the extensive and hate-filled history between P&G and Am

Jeff Miller of the Miami Herald pays homage to Mike Lowell as a team player, and disparages Jimmy Buffett as a trader: No kidding. Mr. Margaritaville, the man who wrote a song entitled Floridays, who called one of his albums...

This morning from an AFB story regarding the Wilson/Plame Affair Wilson spoke out after he was sent to Niger to investigate claims -- aired by Bush in a major speech in January -- that Iraq had tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons from the African state. The former diplomat...

Steve Sande of PDAntic has been feeling what a lot of others have been expressing lately: that Microsoft has lost the plot, at least when it comes to mobile devices. For a little while it looked like it was Palm that was in trouble, but they've come roaring back and now many of the new Pocket PCs look dull compared with all the new and different Palms that have come out recently. To make matters worse, Steve argues, there are still no Smartphones out here in the US (though they should be out soon) and the Tablet PC has failed to catch on like it could have and there's no update for the Tablet PC OS or other radical innovations in sight. Read...

At every conference it seems, someone gets mad at me. My style of public talking has its pluses, the discussion can be lively, but some people's buttons get pushed. Most people go through this without making a scene. At this conference no one went ballistic, I'm thankful for that. But the Web being what it is, it still could happen. My job is to take a deep breath, and go on. ";->"

vbAccelerator has an RSS feed.

At every conference it seems, someone gets mad at me. My style of public talking has its pluses, the discussion can be lively, but some people's buttons get pushed. Most people go through this without making a scene. At this conference no one went ballistic, I'm thankful for that. But the Web being what it is, it still could happen. My job is to take a deep breath, and go on. ";->"

Last updated 2003-10-08 05:56:03.281016-07

What is this picture of? Your worst fears realized... These are three local math teachers in the public school system. I'm really scared now. Here's the article on the University's web site.

At every conference it seems, someone gets mad at me. My style of public talking has its pluses, the discussion can be lively, but also some people's buttons get pushed. Most people go through this without making a scene. At this conference no one went ballistic, I'm thankful for that. But the Web being what it is, it still could happen. My job is to take a deep breath, and go on. ";->"

Of course the American League is not a "real" league, but if it were, Boston fans could teach the rest of the country a thing or two (except the Mets). Red Sox fans might say: Hell or high water, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, etc etc. The fans have a philosophy. "We lose but we love." And what a stadium. This year the losers have a chance to win. Even better, the perennial National League losers, the Chicago Cubs, have a chance too. All things being equal, there's only a 12.5 percent chance of the dream series, but the Baseball God is especially powerful and good at making deals with the other gods. And of all the gods he has the worst sense of humor (or the best depending on how you look at it).

"Military Anti Sodomy Law Under Review": United Press International provides this report. And you can access an account from a reader of "How Appealing" of yesterday's oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces at this link.

If you care about Law and Knowledge Management ("KM") then you'll be happy to learn that Chris Smith is blogging again. Chris does KM at a large New York law firm that remains nameless, but obviously not clueless. And since we're talking about KM be sure to visit Joy London's weblog; she also does KM at a largish New York law firm.

Turning now to the practitioners, we have some great additions: Greg Suskind's Visa Law focuses on immigration law issues. Greg is credited by Rick Klau as having the first legal weblog, which Rick rightly points out that this will make a great trivia question one day.

David Sarnacki, a Michigan lawyer, appears at Domestic Diversions a collaborative weblog "focused on relationships, families, and family law." There is also some discussion of technology and some trial practice tips. Check it out.

Lyle Roberts is a partner with Wilson Sonsini's securities litigation group in Reston, Virginia. His weblog 10B-5 Daily has been around for awhile, but it never hurts to remind you about a great site. His weblog covers securities class action litigation with incisive and informative commentary.

If you are looking for information on Health Law check out Tom Mayo's weblog. Tom is a professor at SMU Law School, but I'm listing him here among the practicing attorney weblogs. Why? Because it is informative and because it "feels right." In addition to information about health law he also promises "occasional digressions into family law, administrative law, constitutional law, poetry, and other things that matter."

Law students are blogging at unprecedented rates. Among the ones my radar picked up are Attempted Survival (Raymond Chandler's account of law school, life, politics Missori politics); Mellow Drama (a student at Lewis & Clark Law School); Dismissed Law Student (A blog about the ups and downs of an academically dismissed law student); Legal Ramblings (Ramblings on the law and law school by a Yale Law School student); and A Good Oman (thoughts from Nate Oman, a Harvard law student). For more law student weblogs click here.

If you're in the Boston area and were at BloggerCon, you are especially welcome at tomorrow night's weblog writer's meeting. I want to hear what everyone thought of the conference. How should Thursday nights change now that it's behind us? Should we webcast the Thurs meetings so that when we have guests they have an idea of how they work? Where are we going next?

An archived Lydon interview with Edward Said, who he calls the "preeminent Palestinian public intellectual in America." Said died last month.

Jim Moore: "Three weeks ago a friend of mine traveled to Little Rock and began working for the Clark campaign. Despite having very good personal access to General Clark, he quit after a few days, citing the closed nature of the campaign organization. And now we hear a similar tale from the campaign manager."

Of course the American League is not a "real" league, but if it were, Boston fans could teach the rest of the country a thing or two (except the Mets). Red Sox fans might say: Hell or high water, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, etc etc. The fans have a philosophy. "We lose but we love." And what a stadium. This year the losers have a chance to win. Even better, the perennial National League losers, the Chicago Cubs, have a chance too. All things being equal, there's only a 12.5 percent chance of the dream series, but the Baseball God is especially powerful and good at making deals with the other gods. And of all the gods he has the worst sense of humor of all (or the best depending on how you look at it).

Last year on this day: "I tried Google News. 4000 pubs all reporting the same story is 4000 times more boring than one. Didn't interest me one bit. I'm spoiled, I've got my own virtual newspaper.

Wired: "As the major record companies scramble to put a lid on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Morpheus and Kazaa, an upstart California record label is trying to revolutionize the industry by taking the opposite approach: making file sharing the heart of its business."

Of course the American League is not a "real" league, but if it were, Boston fans could teach the rest of the country a thing or two (except the Mets, of course). Red Sox fans might say: Hell or high water, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, etc etc. The fans have a philosophy. "We lose but we love." And what a stadium. It's really a shrine. This year the losers have a chance to win. Even better, the perennial National League losers, the Chicago Cubs, have a chance too. All things being equal, there's only a 12.5 percent chance of the dream series, but the Baseball God is especially powerful and good at making deals with the other gods. And of all the gods he has the worst sense of humor of all (or the best depending on how you look at it).