Think you know when the war’s gonna start? Put your money where your mouth is (original). March To War has a pool; it’s five bucks to buy in. 20% of the pool goes to the player who comes closest in the form of prepaid gas cards; the rest goes to humanitarian activity in Iraq. The agency overseeing this is Boston Mobilization — just the kind of progressive activists the right wing loves to hate. But hey, they’re not planning on keeping the money, they’re planning on funnelling it to relief organizations. ...

Thanks to Jon Carroll (original), I’ve uncovered another incidence of shameful French history. Feast your eyes on this artifact, and be reminded why we must scorn the French and mock their history.

Magpie RSS is a PHP RSS parser. Tagged for later reference.

Does anyone have any thoughts to share on Steven Erikson? As in, has anyone read his books?

Last night on American Idol, after each contestant sung, they did the usual “call this number to vote for this singer” bit. But this season, they’ve added another fillip: “Or text this number!” Just like that, no explanation of what the word means. Fox knows its target audience, I guess. Or they’re just trying to look hipper.

The Retrosheet folks are more obsessive about a larger quantity of data (not to mention more productive) than you. I can almost guarantee this. They are engaged in the slow process of compiling as much data as possible about every Major League Baseball game ever played. They have the day by day standings for every season since 1900. Here’s April 11th, 1912. They have play by plays for most games between 1967 and 1990. They find it disappointing that they don’t know which umpires were assigned to all their games. I am in total awe. ...

A generation ago, the City fell. The world fell. It is said that a great disaster marked the date, but that none knew of its significance until it was far too late. It is said that once, men did not believe in demons. If that is so, then disbelief was washed away by a torrent of winged creatures who eat memories and leave only shadows where men once walked. You are brookers, heirs to the tradition of your fathers, who fought the good fight on the Street of the Walls. You bargain with the merchants of the mainland, to ensure that every resident of the City can eat. You battle the demons that live in the tops of the fallen towers with sword and fire, because that is what your fathers did before they died, and you are better trained than your fathers. ...

Den Beste misses the point yet again. “What I think is that they [the nations of the world] already do hate our guts, and that at this point acting unilaterally won’t increase that to any significant degree.” OK, let’s let that be a given for the purposes of argument. Now cast your mind back a year and a half. How did we squander all that good will? ...

I Love Your Work is a weblog about the filming of Adam Goldberg’s film I Love Your Work. Alternatively, it’s a promotional piece. One of the burning issues of the weblog world is whether or not webloggers are journalists. Many webloggers are very indignant about the possibility that they aren’t journalists. Many journalists roll their eyes at the entire question. Helen Yeager, who writes I Love Your Work, can’t talk about certain things she saw (original). She’s part of the promotional effort for the movie; she’s part of the crew (and says as much). It’s an interesting blog but I think that she’s damaged the cause of weblogs as real journalism; by allowing the medium to be coopted, she’s made it harder for other webloggers to be taken seriously. As Film Threat pointed out a while back (original), “the old press tends to be lazy and a little nearsighted when it comes to making distinctions between groups other than themselves…” Fair? Nah, but still true.

Mr. Sterling — no, it’s OK! This is a technology post, not a review. Read on. Mr. Sterling, which is continuing to be mediocre, had an interesting little moment last night. Senator Sterling was sitting in a committee meeting tilting at a windmill, while a press conference raged outside. One of his aides was at the press conference, keeping Sterling updated via BlackBerry. No explanation of what was going on, just a flash of one aide typing on a BlackBerry and the aide with Sterling getting the message. You know a technology’s becoming prevalent when it shows up in a TV show without explanation.