This post is pretty much for Patrick. Others may be amused as well. Chapter 11 of Dan Simmons’ new book, Hard Freeze, starts like this: “How’s the book?” asked Kurtz. He squinted at the title. “Isn’t that the same guy you were reading twelve years ago, before I got sent away?” “Yeah. His detective fought in the Korean War, which makes the old fart in his late sixties at least, but he still kicks ass. A new book comes out every year, if not sooner.” ...

I’m not sure what I think about Pakistan providing nukes to Saudi Arabia, other than that I can’t be sure if the article is even accurate. One anonymous source is a thin reed. You could claim that this is the result of recent Israeli saber-rattling, but really, it’s not. It’d be more accurate to claim that a nuclear Israel will inevitably encourage other Middle Eastern countries to get the bomb. And, of course, a US-occupied Iraq changes the balance of power in the Middle East. This sort of thing is an inevitable consequence. It’s not clear that it’s an unacceptable consequence; Saudi Arabia with nukes is hardly the end of the world. But this move certainly shouldn’t be unexpected.

If one feels so strongly (original) about premature comments, perhaps one should write one’s blog offline and only push it live at 10 PM? Just a thought.

Jason Giambi has been subpoenaed in connection with a steroid scandal (original). Now is the time for all Red Sox fans to feel deeply vindicated. (More seriously — innocent unless proven guilty.)

That’s kind of surreal. The Celtics just traded Walker and Delk to the Mavericks for Rafe LaFrentz, Jiri Welsch, and Chris Mills. Plus a first round pick. It’s hard to make sense of this one for either team. LaFrentz has a $69 million contract which doesn’t expire till 2008 or so. He also doesn’t represent a huge upgrade at center from Tony Battie, although he’s a much better shot blocker. Chris Mills is just kind of there, and his contract expires soon. Jiri Welsch might actually be something; he’s a 6’7” point guard who played well overseas. But giving up Walker for a handful of potential seems very odd. ...

Lieberman and Clark are skipping Iowa (original), or at least the Iowa caucuses. Makes sense for Lieberman, who was polling very poorly in Iowa. A little surprising for Clark, but he couldn’t make a dent in the Gephardt/Dean race, so it’s probably his best option. However, this puts both of them in the position of battling for third place in New Hampshire, which is not entirely auspicious. Even worse, if Kerry wins or comes in second in Iowa, they run the risk of being just part of the pack. ...

That was easy enough. Admire my brand-new title-based individual entry URLs, which will permit me to migrate hosts, databases, and even blog software without losing my permalinks should I ever feel the need.

The redirection solution I’ll use when I get around to fixing my archive permalinks comes from Elizabeth Lawley. ( Shelley has some notes as well.) Clever stuff. MTEntryID needs padding, though, and Shelley’s quotes got smartened. Word to the wise. Mark Pilgrim has tips on archive names (original), which are pretty good even if I don’t mind having .php on the tail of each URL. Which I don’t. But the keywords trick will be very useful, since my post titles tend to be cryptic.

Christopher Allbritton dug around (original) and came up with some fresh indications that the United States might be planning to attack Syria. I gotta agree that HR 1828 (original) is pretty indicative, although it’s also the kind of rhetoric Congressmen use to take a tough stance on terrorism in election years. I also think that Israel’s nuclear revelations are aimed at Iran, which has much more of a nuclear program than Syria. ...

Batting cleanup, this fall morning: Edward Cossette Jim Caple (original) Tom Boswell Eric McErlain (original) And A. Bartlett Giamatti: “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoon and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, you rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.” ...