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The first person who changed my life, I never met. He or she left some old SF paperbacks in a little villa on Green Turtle Cay, in the Bahamas — Perry Rhodans, as I recall — and I read them while I was ten or so and on vacation. They blew me away, far more so than the golf books. I haven’t stopped reading SF yet. That’s why my dad’s friend Peter Olotka said “Hey, your son likes SF — he can share our room at Boskone if you like.” Dad said sure, and that was my first SF con. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but I more or less stopped going when I hit college. ...

Welcome to your handy guide (biased and slanted) to today’s primaries. We have seven primaries today, which will greatly affect the chances of three and a half candidates. (If Kucinich, Lieberman, or Sharpton win any of the primaries, that will have an effect as well, but I’m dubious about their chances. Which is a shame, at least in one case.) Dean’s strategy is to spend all his money on Michigan and Washington in an effort to win both of those states. Winning Michigan would put him solidly back in the race. However, he’s not expecting to win anything today. ...

Just as a reminder: Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target. It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create? ...

Bush neglected to add funds for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to the budget. Again. That’s a little unfair of me, since in the one case we’re talking military funding and in the other we’re talking human aid. Still, either way he’s avoiding the true cost of the war. “The White House expects to cover the war costs with supplemental funds after next fall’s elections.” Indeed.

And the nominees are… (original) Biggies (i.e., the ones I care about): Best Actor Johnny Depp — Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl Ben Kingsley — House Of Sand And Fog Jude Law — Cold Mountain Bill Murray — Lost In Translation Sean Penn — Mystic River Depp is the surprise nomination here. I still think he was better in Once Upon A Time In Mexico, but what do I know? Bill Murray would be my pick for the Oscar. ...

Westwood One Radio Network is owned by Infinity, a subsidiary of Viacom. Viacom’s other properties include CBS. CBS just refused to run issue advertisements during the Super Bowl. Oddly, on the Westwood One pregame Super Bowl show, I just heard two advertisements for LDS Family Services. I didn’t find either of them objectionable; they were both pro-adoption ads designed to encourage people to give unwanted children up for adoption. I’m pretty sure they both counted as issue ads. ...

Suicide bombers killed or wounded 200 Kurds today in Arbil (original). The targets were the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party. No news yet on the affiliation of the bombers. This represents a significant step towards civil war. The question is whether or not the Kurds get to run Kirkuk and Mosul, the big northern oil cities. The Kurds would like to be in charge of these important resources; the Sunnis tend to disagree. ...

Warning: this link contains flash animation and punk rock kittens.

I fought the law, and the law won. The new Pepsi commercial, featuring illegal downloaders. The kid with the speaking role can’t act, but I like it anyhow.

“I can’t refuse to read things because the author is an asshole. I hate people; I wouldn’t get to read anything.”