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Earlier this month, internal white house rumors were leaked saying that ideally, it'd be great to find an Al Queda suspect during the week of the Democratic National Convention, since the Democrats would likely be grabbing headlines. Sounds like some crass opportunism instead of truly protecting the republic from terrorists, doesn't it?

Well, what do you know, today this message floated at the top of CNN.com, more important than Kerry's keynote. Even though the guy was caught on Sunday, we don't hear about it until today. Foxnews looks the same way (screenshot), with the Al Queda headline above Kerry's one day in the sun at Fox News. But it's all just a coincidence and we're not being played like a fiddle. Sure.
comment posted at 6:25 PM on Jul-29-04
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comment posted at 7:33 PM on Jul-29-04

Ricky Quits Football to Smoke Dope
Ricky Williams knew he'd failed a third drug test and retired from football before his coach found out.
Says Ricky, "I didn't quit football because I failed a drug test," he told the Herald. "I failed a drug test because I was ready to quit football."
Williams said he's not addicted to marijuana. And I'm sure he can quit anytime he wants to but maybe he got confused and quit his profession instead of his "hobby"?
Is this the first time a star athlete's quit because he wants to hang out and smoke dope?
comment posted at 7:12 PM on Jul-29-04

Math that makes you go wow: A multi-disciplinary exploration of non-orientable surfaces.
comment posted at 3:37 PM on Jul-29-04

Michael Moore vs. Bill O'Reilly No, I'm not kidding. And yes, it is a Drudge link. Watch O'Reilly Godwin halfway through the interview.
comment posted at 11:52 PM on Jul-28-04

The first black president of the United States.
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I don't think Americans regard this war the same way they did previous wars.
comment posted at 11:06 PM on Jul-28-04

The true identity of the "mysterious" Atrios has been revealed.
comment posted at 2:44 AM on Jul-29-04

How To Insult Gay Men And Women At The Same Time: Isn't Arnold Shwarzenegger getting a bit of a free ride? Sixties hero Paul Krassner (who notoriously described LBJ avidly fornicating JFK's bullet holed cranium on Air Force One) may be mellower and less forthright but his instincts seem as acute as ever. Btw, what other 60s yippies and figureheads are still relevant?
comment posted at 11:40 PM on Jul-27-04

USA Today Dumps Ann Coulter
Citing editorial differences, USA Today dropped Ann Coulter's column before it even began in the paper.

The disputed column on www.anncoulter.com begins "Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston" and devolves rapidly into a bitter little snark against Democrats. I wonder why USA Today had a problem with it?

It ends with "I'd say I love all these Democrats in Boston so much I want them to go home, but I don't. I want Americans to get a good long look at the French Party and keep the 7-11 challenge in mind."
comment posted at 5:54 PM on Jul-27-04
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Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation (pdf) The relative speed and ease of the first phase of the war in Iraq are due in part to U.S. military prowess, but also to Iraqi weakness, according to a critical internal account prepared for the U.S. Army."The shortcomings of Saddam's military played an important role in limiting the cost of major combat operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Coalition strengths were important contributors, but so were Iraqi weaknesses."As a result, there are "important limitations on the Iraq War's lessons for other defense planning challenges.... The Iraqis' shortcomings created a permissive environment for Coalition technology that a more skilled opponent elsewhere might not," according to the study Foreword. The study, which does represent an official U.S. Army perspective, has not been formally released. See also Joe Galloway: Don't Take Too Much From U.S.' Iraq War Experience See also The Fallacies Of Military Transformation See also Victory Misunderstood: What the Gulf War Tells Us About the Future of Conflict See also Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare
comment posted at 11:43 PM on Jul-27-04

LastFM "is a personalised online radio station that plays the right music to the right people. Songs spread from listener to listener." Using data from the groovy Audioscrobbler, this is pretty damn cool. But, like #1 said, it can't possibly be legal...
comment posted at 11:16 PM on Jul-26-04
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comment posted at 5:52 AM on Jul-27-04

Scott Ritter on Iraq. Some interesting reading here from the man who stood up to the President, the pundits, the media, etc and told the world that chances are Iraq had few to no WMD. Now he's warning us that Saddam's people are really in charge and how Allawi's government is doomed to fail. Man, I hate the IHT interface.
comment posted at 4:23 PM on Jul-26-04

Giga Society: the world's most exclusive high IQ society, where an IQ of 196 or higher (one in a billion) is required to join. Not quite as cranially-advantaged? Well, there's always the Oath society, which'll take you if you're only one in a thousand (a mere 150 IQ or higher). Big brains and design skills (or language ones, for that matter) don't mix well, though, it would seem. [more inside]
comment posted at 7:25 PM on Jul-24-04
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Poll Shows Growing Arab Rancor at U.S. Arab views of the United States, shaped largely by the Iraq war and a post-Sept. 11 climate of fear, have worsened in the past two years to such an extent that in Egypt -- an important ally in the region -- nearly 100 percent of the population now holds an unfavorable opinion of the country, according to two polls due out today... More within
comment posted at 6:53 PM on Jul-24-04

The Day is Mine, Trebek. Who wants to punch Ken Jennings in the face?
comment posted at 6:33 PM on Jul-23-04

According to multiple recent nationwide polls, the presidential race is a dead heat, with the spread within the margin of error. Some have Bush by a couple points, some say Kerry by a couple. But take a look at the way the race is represented by www.electoral-vote.com, which tracks polls state-by-state and takes electoral votes into account. Suddenly, the tally is Kerry 332, Bush 195.
comment posted at 4:21 AM on Jul-23-04

Straw House Blog. Coolhouse. Colorado house. When summer comes, I invariably start dreaming of places to live that are utterly unlike the standard Korean Concrete Beehive Box.
comment posted at 5:07 AM on Jul-23-04

Where did dynamic range go? Compact discs seem to keep getting more and more compressed in an effort to make them seem louder. Didn't the compact disc promise greater dynamic range than vinyl? Then, some record label exec comes along and makes the recording so hot we lose the dynamic range. People have been complaining about this for some time. Papers have been written about it with proposed solutions. Where will it end?
comment posted at 2:59 AM on Jul-22-04
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Drunk Talk. Modern Drunkard's new crop of bar slang.
comment posted at 11:16 PM on Jul-21-04

Its obesity talk time, again. "Once the fried dough embodiment of hot and fresh, Krispy Kreme has transformed its original glazed doughnut into a new frozen beverage for summer." You heard that right. A donut drink. The United States is still food innovator #1!
comment posted at 2:18 AM on Jul-22-04

Sony, BMG Merge into One Grotesque Abomination. Sony Music and BMG combine to form the second largest music label in the world. Current plans? Layoff a bunch of employees. Future possibilities? Dropping lesser known bands.
comment posted at 2:28 AM on Jul-22-04

Six million dollars and a hostage is free. Now others are asking the Philippines for similar arrangements.
comment posted at 2:21 AM on Jul-21-04

Wal-Mart Locator 2004 - For years Wal-Mart has allowed RV owners to camp for free in their parking lots (sometimes to the dismay of campground owners). But the Bay Area wants to pull the plug on the practice for fear of the stores becoming impromptu homeless encampments.
comment posted at 11:50 PM on Jul-19-04

Fountains of Youth and Health : periodic, therapeutic fasting and caloric restriction. Ben Franklin wrote of this, and most religions advocate periodic fasting. In the "Fasting Worm Study", earthworms became nearly immortal. Recent research underscores the health benefits, which do not require overall caloric restriction (a "fast and gorge" cycle works too) for humans. Fasting shows promise for the treatment of most addictions, Cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, Gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes, Uterine fibroid tumors, Back and neck problems, high blood pressure, arthritis and joint pain, depression, perhaps Huntington's Disease... Here's a clinic which specializes in medically supervised water only fasts and offers recent studies and writings on the subject (PDF, .doc, and .htm format). Fasting seems to be very good for your brain overall. Meanwhile, inside : the benefits of caloric restriction, which seems to dramatically slow many age-related diseases.
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Doom 3 site goes live.
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Patrick Hughes has more excellent advice for children, but people of all ages will probably find it useful. Heed what he says about Skinhead Katrina. He knows of what he speaks.
comment posted at 5:34 PM on Jul-17-04

The lid is blowing off. Tom Tomorrow reports that the story of the 107 imprisoned, tortured, and raped children in Abu Ghraib is beginning to break all over the world, as the US media remains in patriotic silence. We're already about to lose our first ally over this, Norway.
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Its Heartwarming Friday ! Lets all hug each other and see some of the loveliest , caringest and just plain Heartwarmingest sites the web has to offer.
comment posted at 10:21 PM on Jul-15-04