Oh my god. I got a voicemail from Rudy Giuliani, urging me to vote for Bill Simon for governor. At first I thought it was my brother imitating Giuliani. I thought to myself. "That's a good imitation." Then I realized it really was the former mayor of NYC, the hero of 9-11. He didn't leave a number for me to call him back at. I'm starting to get pissed at all these political spam voicemails. [Scripting News]

Giuliani better be getting paid well for the political shilling he's engaging in - California, Massachusetts, trying to sell Republican gubernatorial candidates in moderate states by connecting them to the most acceptable Republican in the country. Hopefully it won't take.

Interesting bit from a Law and Order rerun from last season that I'm watching right now - Dr. Emil Skoda interviewing a killer whose lawyer claimed his racism was a symptom of insanity. It was strange to hear Skoda sitting on the other side of ultra-racist arguments, since I'm used to seeing him as Schillinger on Oz...

Looking at today's referer logs, I see this:

It seems that a link to here got mailed out to a pretty big list of people, if that many actually bothered to click over. Unlike normal referers, I can't tell who pointed people here, or why they were pointed here. Now I'm curious...

Come on Eileen. I swear. What he means. You're so dirty and lean. I said come on. Eileen. [Scripting News]

My god - Dave's gone completely off the deep end. He's quoting Dexy's Midnight Runners out of context.. =)

I've found more multiple-Sorkin actors...

Amazing what you can do with a little obsessive behavior and IMDb... =) That should be it - the complete Aaron Sorkin Concordance...

Because I'm a tremendous dork, here's the beginnings of a concordance of Aaron Sorkin actors...ie, actors who've appeared on one or more of the three Aaron Sorkin-created media pieces - The American President, Sports Night, and West Wing. This was inspired by seeing Joshua Malina aka Jeremy from Sports Night on West Wing last night, and realizing that he was also in American President. If you've seen any two of the three Sorkin pieces, you've almost certainly seen more overlap - Martin Sheen, for example, as Chief of Staff on American President and then obviously President on West Wing...so here goes... (* means a one time appearance)

There may be a number I missed - people with only guest appearances on Sports Night or West Wing - I didn't go through their guest star lists, or American President's cast list. Why, you ask? Because this is obsessive enough as is. But it does show that Joshua Malina is the first to appear on all three...

Andrew Bayer dissects the moth-man at the center of Microsoft's new MSN ad campaign and finds it "evil and insectile." [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]

It wasn't me - it was the Raven! Scott, you're misreading. =)

ooooh - now I see how Rob Lowe is getting written off of West Wing...I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen tonight's episode yet (haha, left coasters!), but it makes sense - actually, it plays off some things from last season. And involves Joshua Malina aka Jeremy from Sports Night. WOO! =)

On a slightly less positive note than nifty West Wing guest appearences, the damn Celtics somehow managed to lose to the damn Bulls. Mind you, there was some ostentatiously bad refereeing going on, but still - Pierce had only five points in the second half, which was just baaaad. Damn.

1880 Census Data Online. The 1880 US census data is now online and available for free searching. I spotted this the other day via... [megnut]

geektacular - though the 1890 Census is the more historically significant one. Why, you ask? It's the first one done on Hollerith machines - the first punch card machines from the man who founded IBM.

...because I am a tremendous dork, I just checked, and yes - Danica McKellar, aka Winnie Cooper, is on West Wing tonight.

WOOHOO! Jeremy from Sports Night is guesting on West Wing tonight! I'm going to sit here and pray repeatedly that they decide to bring him in as a recurring character.

And I think that's Winnie from the Wonder Years as his assistant. Oh my.

Viagra Swells Scarce Animal Count. Researchers say their studies suggest that ever-quickening global Viagra sales have contributed to a softer market for traditional Chinese impotence remedies that require body parts from endangered animals. By Stewart Taggart. [Wired News]

Well, there's an unforeseen benefit to what seemed otherwise to just be a luxury item - by taking Viagra, you can say you're saving the rhinos!

Moscow siege gas 'was opiate'. 12.30pm: US officials claim to have identified gas used by Russian special forces. [Guardian Unlimited]

Well, that's a good way to stop hostage takers - OD 'em on heroin. I know, I know - that's not precisely what happened, but it's close enough to highlight the weirdness of the situation. They actually pumped an opiate into the theater, but screwed up the proportions: the hostages and their captors were literally overdosing.

Was Paul Wellstone Murdered?. For our government to maintain its credibility, we need an open and acccountable independent investigation into the death of Paul Wellstone. [AlterNet]

The article here talks about various other political figures who've died in small plane crashes - all of them liberals or at the very least non-mainstream. Uh...right. Maybe it's just that small planes are really, really unsafe? Buddy Holly, anyone?

I Want to Fly Away

As an admitted Mac fanatic and Microsoft critic, I can't claim to be unbiased, but am I the only person who finds Microsoft's MSN 8 "Butterfly Man" logo to be weird and frightening? Look at it. The damned thing is the monster that once inhabited my bedroom closet. Evil and insectile, you wonder to yourself, "On what does this chitonous predator feed?" Its antennae sniff out traces of originality and competitiveness which the demon obediently ferries back to the mother-nest for the lawyerbrood to digest and consume. The ichthyian lower appendages are firmly rooted in hidden black code known only to Redmond plannerlarvae, and the multihued wings beat a miasmic cloud of noxious script that sees all, knows all, cataloging the contents of your hard drive for later inspection at the hive...

[The Raven]

I dunno - really, it just makes me think of the sidekick from The Tick on acid.

What does it mean to be part of the Salon blog community?. Last week one of the two filchyboy blogs rocketed to the top of the Salon daily ranking charts with off-the-scale traffic numbers, even though an examination of the referrer logs showed nothing special going.

*snip*

 So, again, what is the essence of this community? What holds it together? What makes a web page or a web site a member or not a member of this community? I don't see any easy answers. [Radio Free Blogistan]

I responded to this (it's worth reading the whole post, but it's big - so I didn't keep the whole thing) in the comments over at RFB, but I'm still working through my thought process. The question is whether it would be wrong for xian to put the Salon blog counter on Radio Free Blogistan now that it doesn't live on Salon servers...also, would it be wrong to put the counter on his Blogger-based mirror of RFB. I don't have a problem with either one...Charly of Driver 8 has suggested that whether your blog/site is a legitimate part of the Salon blog community (and therefore worthy of being ranked) depends on whether the blog/site is generated with the Salon-branded Radio. I'm not even sure I feel a need to be that restrictive.

Here's my (rough) definition of what makes a blog part of the Salon community: it lives there or lived there at some point in the past. On some level, I think maybe it should be that the owner of the blog paid for the Salon-branded Radio as well, even if their site/blog no longer uses it, but I'm not really comfortable with that. If filchyboy's blog had moved to safersex.org, then it'd be alright if he recorded all those hits - it was a Salon blog, right? Radio Free Blogistan no longer lives on blogs.salon.com, but xian has chosen to have it still be identified as a Salon blog - so it is one. What filchyboy did was take a pre-existing site, and insert the counters for Salon blogs into it. The site may have been built using Radio, but it was only related to filchyboy's blogs at Salon by a common owner and links - it wasn't a mirror of his Salon blog, nor was his Salon blog a mirror of safersex.org. So xian, I guess what I'm saying is that, as I see it, it's fine to keep your counter on your Blogger mirror of RFB - but it'd be unkosher to put your counter onto another site that isn't part of Radio Free Blogistan. Also, if there were Blogger counters and your Blogger site consisted solely of the mirror of RFB, I'd feel a little uncomfortable with the Blogger site also having a counter for Blogger, if such a thing existed.

Am I making any sense? =)

Mexico Tells Bush It Won't Support Iraq Resolution U.S. Favors. President Bush left a summit conference on Sunday without a pledge from Mexico to support the American resolution in the United Nations Security Council to disarm Iraq. By Tim Weiner. [New York Times: International]

Here's an example of just how poorly the Bush administration is working the Iraq situation: they can't get MEXICO to support the US. Their stated reason for opposing Bush's resolution? It doesn't have broad enough support in the Security Council...a 9-6 vote would pass it, but would also signal lack of unity, which, Mexico's foreign minister points out, would be a Bad Thing.

"What we want is a resolution that is approved by all 15 — or 14 — members of the Security Council," said Mr. Castañeda. "We think that's more important for the United States' cause." The 15th vote would be Syria's, but no one thinks it will vote against Iraq.

NYT.  Safire makes the case that only those nations that sign-off on the Bush invasion of Iraq get access to the $ billions derived by the control of Iraq's oil after the war.  One of the unstated goals here is that by glutting the market with Iraqi oil, we will deflate the main source of funding for terrorists. $15 a barrel oil would put Saudi Arabia on the ropes financially and make them less likely to fund terrorists that attack the US and Israel.  [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Of course, it could also make the Saudis more likely to support anti-American forces in Iraq, in an attempt to regain control of the oil market...

Embryo mix-up at IVF hospital. An IVF blunder at a London hospital left two women with the wrong embryos put back into their wombs¸ it has been revealed. [BBC News | Front Page]

Whoops! What a comical mix up!

Ok, not really, but I swear I saw this on a sitcom once...

While reading about the protests against war in Iraq in DC this weekend, I had some doubts. Do I really want to associate myself with the whacko "left"? The point was really driven home by this paragraph from Michelle Goldberg's excellent piece on the protests (sorry, cheapskates - Salon Premium. Go subscribe! Good stuff!):

Nearby on Constitution Avenue a drum circle formed, and a few hundred people started dancing. Chants went up -- to the tune of "Who Let the Dogs Out," some sang, "Who kills Iraqis? Bush Bush Bush Bush. Who is a Nazi? Bush Bush Bush Bush." A young blonde woman wore a sign that announced, with staggering self-congratulation, "I speak for the voiceless victims of war."

I'm sorry, what? I hate Bush as much as any rational radical can, but comparing him to a Nazi is even more flawed than comparing Saddam to Hitler. The whacko "left" demonstrate their ignorance and disdain towards the ideals they claim to serve by ignoring and ridiculing Iraqi victims of Hussein's tyranny. Not that I expected much better from these guys - Michelle Goldberg wrote a great article a couple weeks ago on the truly strange organizations sponsoring the protests. We're talking about groups like the Revolutionary Communist Party and the International Action Center (a quote from their website: "No one in the world, however, has a worse human rights record than  the United States itself." Hmm...China, anyone?), after all.

Here's the thing - I'm about as left wing as you can get. I've yet to achieve a coherent political philosophy to describe how I believe the world should be organized, but I can guarantee it's pretty far out there - I'm a fan of Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin, and other anarcho-socialists. I'm a fervent pacifist - I have never touched a gun, and I will never bear arms for any reason. I believe that the Bush administration is not the legitimate government of the United States; after all, it's not like they were elected or anything. But my opposition to overthrowing Saddam Hussein does not derive from some moral high ground I claim, some holier-than-thou sense. Not in the least - it's my belief that George Bush The Elder deserves a lot of blame for the current situation, for his unwillingness to finish off Hussein in '91, and even more so for inspiring revolt in Iraq and then abandoning it to be crushed by Hussein's forces.

No, Saddam Hussein needs to be removed from power - he is a truly bad person who has abused his power on an epic scale. He's no Stalin or Hitler, but that's pretty faint praise, isn't it? No, the problem I have with the current war fever is not that goal - it's pretty much everything else involved. If you honestly believe that Iraq poses a threat to the United States right now, one that we will be unable to counter a few years down the road, I've got a bridge in New York to sell you. And if you honestly believe that the Bush administration's only motivations are the defense of the US and an altruistic desire to help the Iraqi people, well, you're too gullible to even pay attention to.

Now isn't the right time to go into Iraq - the entire Arab world is at least mildly pissed at us for our unabashed, unrestricted support for the Likud government in Israel and its reprehensible behavior in the West Bank and Gaza. We've got a commitment to rebuild one country already (of course, we've pretty thoroughly given up on Afghanistan already, but we can still achieve peace there if we work at it), we've already got a "war" to fight against terrorism. Going into Iraq will mean abandoning Afghanistan completely, allowing it to become a haven for terrorists again. Going into Iraq will provoke yet more anti-Americanism in the Muslim world - leading to increased terrorist recruitment and activity. Don't forget that we've got a shaky-at-best economy at home - and claims that war is good for the economy only have relevance when you're talking about turning the entire country to a command economy to benefit war effort, a la World War II. Vietnam wasn't good for the economy - could anyone really expect war and sustained violence in the Persian Gulf to be good for the economy?

So why is the Bush administration pushing so hard for war now? Political cover. Sure, Bush wants vengance for Hussein's attempt to kill Daddy, and US oil companies want a new government in Iraq that they can sign contracts with (and one that invalidates previously signed deals with French and Russian oil companies), but the big cause seems to be politics. The economy is in the tank, Bush's corporate cronies are taking perp walks every couple weeks, the voting public looks like it may be tending towards a more liberal position, oh, and don't forget the corporate crime and corruption allegations against Bush and Cheney themselves. We've known since late spring that Karl Rove was telling Republicans that war was a good campaign tool for them. The war drums got really loud when the Harkin and Haliburton stories blew up. There was Andrew Card's statement that August wasn't the time to "sell" war to the American people. The push for a vote in Congress came just when the Democrats were trying to campaign for November on the economy.

This war the Bush administration is pushing down our throats isn't a selfless war for the good of the Iraqi people. It's not a defensive war, to protect us from weapons of mass destruction (after all, North Korea has the Bomb and we're not invading THEM, now, are we?). It's just a distraction, a way to keep the American public from realizing how poor a job the Bush administration has done, how corrupt they are. I'm willing to bet that if they get this war and it goes quickly, they've got another scheduled for late '04 - the electorate won't throw a president out of office during a war, will they? Maybe that's just paranoid cynicism, but this administration and its treatment of the Iraq issue has given me plenty of reason to suspect things like that. And THAT is the reason to oppose the war - not "US out of the Middle East!"

HA! Peter f'n Guber, former head of Sony and producer of, among other movies, Batman, is doing jury duty. On Winona Ryder's trial. Best part - this quote:

"Quite a few of you are in the entertainment industry," prosecutor Ann Rundle told the panel. "Do you think at any point in the future you might hope to work with Ms. Ryder?"

All shook their heads no.

Just when I thought American culture couldn't fall any further, 'Jackass' tops the box office. Eugh.

Right now Sci Fi is airing Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate, a movie based on Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novel The Club Dumas. The film, which I saw when it was originally released, follows "book detective" Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) on his search throughout the Iberic Peninsula and France for the existing copies of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, supposedly written by the Devil himself. An entertaining yarn, though not a movie that displays Polanki's prowess.

But watching this movie again I'm reminded of what I identified as its truly remarkable element: Corso, who with his glasses and goatee, his trenchcoat and messenger's bag in tow and the charisma Depp injects into him, is a character so richly textured, like Indiana Jones or James Bond, as to deserve a series of films built around him. Imagine, a book-worm hero, globetrotting in search of arcane tomes and mysterious collectors, stumbling upon plots of every stripe: political, supernatural, you name it.

Alas, the movie received a cold reception during its theatrical release, and by the end Corso seems to have walked into his final demise anyway. Not much chance for a franchise there. Still, the ending is ambiguous enough that, if the studios were looking for some fresh ideas to turn into movies, they could always bring back Dean Corso, dashing book detective.

[Driver 8]

I rather liked Ninth Gate myself...it was just the right kind of spooky. And Charly's dead on - Depp as Corso is amazing.

The single greatest thing about my TiVo so far is going to be irrelevant in two weeks or so - Sports Night. They're releasing the complete run on DVD in a couple weeks, and being a good fanboy, I've got it pre-ordered. I love that show. I really, really love that show. As good as Peter Krause is now on Six Feet Under, I firmly believe he was better on Sports Night.

Yeah, I just finished watching an episode. I get like this sometimes. =)

Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit in 9/11. World latest: America's most controversial writer Gore Vidal has launched his most scathing attack on President Bush, calling for an investigation into whether the US administration deliberately allowed the terrorist attacks to happen. [Guardian Unlimited]

Ok, even by my standards this is paranoid...

Culling The Literary Herd: Where Do Books Go To Die?. Plastic::Media::Books: what happens when you finally come to the realization that you have too many damn books? Burn them? [Plastic: Most Recent]

Four words: library used book sale. The library in my hometown never had late fees - they would have just gone into the town coffers without the library ever getting any cash, so it would have cost them more to charge late fees than they'd get back. Anyway, I abused this - took FOREVER to return books. So, to make up for that, I give all my books that I'm done with to the library used book sale. Tada!

posted by jfc at October 26 5:12 PM. Americans the streets, finally! 100,000 (or so) in DC protest the war in Iraq. Parallel protests in cities worldwide. Why is no lawmaker stepping up to represent this constituency? [MetaFilter]

One did - sadly, he died yesterday...

Moscow hostage death toll soars. At least 140 people - more than half of them hostages - are killed as Russian special forces storm a theatre seized by Chechen rebels. [BBC News | WORLD]

Shit - that's a lot of dead people. Not a very good job by the Russians, I have to say, when approximately 40 hostage takers can lead to at least 100+ Russian troops and hostages dead.

posted by Postroad at October 26 4:59 AM. Bin Laden is in Saudi Arabia I must apologize for the format but I thought this DebkaFile piece of interest and since I do not subsribe I was able to get the story through having it send to me via e-mail in order to avoid an even worse format. The piece, accurate or not--who can verify it?--seems to indicate how large and clever this terror operation is and where they feel there is safety against an all-out American drive to capute bin Laden. Anyone want to go and collect the reward money? [MetaFilter]

Something to note - the people who run debka.com, the source for this story, are the Israeli equivalents of Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld - extreme right-wing hawks who look for any excuse they can find to bash people and countries they don't like. They claim there are massive links between Arafat and Iraq, that al Qaeda is firmly ensconced in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, and more fun loonie stuff. I tend to doubt they know what they're talking about 9 times out of 10.

Radio question: How do I delete files on the server? I had Radio generating monthly archives for a while, but I don't want it doing that any more. There are three files of about 750k each up on the server (August, September, October), and I can't figure out how to delete them...

It looks like filchyboy has removed the referer javascript from his non-Salon web page, so the sick sick amount of hits he was getting here have stopped. I hope I didn't come across as too much of a dick about that, but it was just a little silly - he was getting 5,000 hits a day recorded for a page that wasn't getting 10% of that number in reality. Made the rest of us look bad... =)

I'm such a dork - I'm staying up late to fiddle with Radio and try to shrink my space usage by a couple meg...oy. Bugger this, I'm going to bed.

Those Seeing White Vans Breathe Easier. So Do the Drivers.. The sight of a white van no longer strikes fear or instills suspicion, and driving one has certainly become less stressful. By Sarah Kershaw. [New York Times: National]

Especially since the bad guys NEVER HAD A FRIGGIN' WHITE VAN.

Anti-Semitic 'Elders of Zion' Gets New Life on Egypt TV. An Egyptian satellite television channel has begun teasers for its blockbuster Ramadan series that incorporates ideas from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," an anti-Semitic epic. By Daniel J. Wakin. [New York Times: International]

Aw, hell - as if the Protocols of the Elders of Zion deserve any more press...Russian anti-Semitism of the early 20th century lives on...

Freedom Of The Press Meets Angry High School Jocks. Plastic::Media::Print Media: After a sarcastic high school newspaper article, student is sacked by football team as part of pep assembly. Can you hear the lawyers calling? [Plastic: Most Recent]

Something similar to this happened to a friend of mine at college...he wrote a column in one of the student newspapers, and boy was it sarcastic - wonderfully fun stuff, ripping on everyone from the sexual assault support team to the football team and back again. Well, after some joke at the expense of the football team (I can't remember what exactly, but it was kinda funny), a few of the less-than-bright members of the team decided to get revenge. They broke into his dorm room while he slept, unplugged his phone, and beat the shit out of him. This is at Oberlin College, mind you, ultra-left wing touchy-feely school. The only things our football team is known for are that Heisman coached there early on in his career, and we had the absolute worst varsity college football team in the country during the '90s - one win. Hell, Swarthmore, who had the nation's longest losing streak after we somehow beat Thiel in '97, played us a couple years later, won, and promptly disbanded their football team - ending on a winning note and all that. But these idiots thought that they had to beat up someone for pointing out how bad the team was in a comical way. I forget how the whole thing wound up discipline-wise...the all-male dorm that served as Jock House, for all intents and purposes, got gender-integrated the next year, and a couple of the attackers got suspended, if I remember correctly. Fucked up.

Jurisdictions Will Weigh Options, Including Death. When law enforcement officials meet today to discuss what charges to bring against John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, the main topic is likely to be the death penalty. By Adam Liptak. [New York Times: National]

Speaking of "aw hell", Alabama wants to get the death penalty on 17 year old John Lee Malvo...check that, Lee Boyd Malvo. New name, I guess. He's a friggin' kid...there's hints of abuse and other mistreatment by Muhammed, allegations of brainwashing...so yeah, let's exceute him. If I had the time, I'd dig up the stat on how many countries execute their children...it's something like 5 or 6, including the US.

Get This Partisan Started: Dubya's Federal Election Army. Plastic::Politics::Politics:Dubya: With the shoehorning of official duties and party fund-raisers, and the deployment of Federal appointees to the campaign trail, has Bush trumped his predecessors in using public office for partisan gain? [Plastic: Most Recent]

Short answer: yes. Long answer: Oh hell yeah.

Microsoft decals don't stick in NYC. The city of New York orders the software giant to remove butterfly decals that were plastered all over midtown Manhattan as part of a promotion for the launch of MSN 8. [CNET News.com]

I remember there being a big deal about the Peace Love And Linux graffiti that IBM did a few years back - I loved them and giggled whenever I found 'em. Microsoft decals, though...bleh.

Aw, hell...Paul Wellstone is dead. Possibly with his wife and kids on board the plane as well. Not only is this a tragedy for Wellstone's family, this is a tragedy for America: one of the great liberals is gone. This is really, really sad...

One thing I love about Law & Order: playing Spot The New York Regulars. If you take a look at the IMDb info for Oz, and then look at the credits for almost anyone on the show, you'll see that they've done time on Law & Order. This morning, I've got a 2000 episode on, and I've already seen two guys I recognize from Oz, and a guy who played a psycho in an earlier episode of L&O.

posted by Davezilla at October 24 3:31 AM. Two men held in connection with sniper case And I was just getting used to seeing 24-7 coverage of it on every frigging channel. Now we'll have to hear about Iraq or Martha Stewart again. [MetaFilter]

Nah - we'll get wall-to-wall coverage on the 5 minutes worth of information they have on the guys they're detaining...

As Piniella Talks Stall, Mets Turn Their Attention to Howe. With their hopes of landing Lou Piniella to be their next manager all but dead, the Mets have zeroed in on Oakland Athletics Manager Art Howe. By Rafael Hermoso and Murray Chass. [New York Times: Sports]

Suckers! Art Howe has been managing a team with sick amounts of young talent, and he's only been adequete. I'm not saying he's a BAD manager per se, but he's not a particularly *good* manager either. Then again, I still don't know why the hell Pinella wants to go to Tampa - sure, it's home, but if he retired, he could spend even more time with his family, and he wouldn't have to manage a truly horrible team in the bargain. The Mariners are actually going to really benefit from this: the rumored compensation is Randy Winn and Rocco Baldelli. For those of you who don't know more about baseball than they do about anything useful, that's Tampa Bay's only All Star from last year, and the Baseball America minor league player of the year. Pinella is most assuredly not worth that cost...I could see sending Winn - if the Devil Rays don't give away Baldelli, they've got three uber-prospect outfielders just about ready to play in the majors - Carl Crawford, Josh Hamilton, and the aforementioned Rocco Baldelli, making Winn replacable. Winn also may be arbitration-eligible - meaning he's got a multi-million dollar raise coming to him this off-season, which means the D-Rays would LOVE to get rid of him.

But Baldelli? We're talking about a kid who, at age 20, rocketed from Single A ball to AAA by the end of the year. He's got another year of seasoning before he's ready for the majors, but still - he's *good*. REAL good.

Eeek. First a Nasdaq commercial with the CEOs of Dell, Starbucks, and Microsoft (ack! Ballmer!), then a commercial for Level 3 narrated by Sean Connery. His voice actually sounded old, if you'd believe it.

Oh crap - it's past midnight. I was busy writing an email to a short girl from Pepperell (don't ask) and lost track of time. Off to bed. G'night.

Ok, I was wrong. It is based on Radio at least to some extent - I read through the source more. I also found the rankings at xmlstoragesytem.com...today alone, 5,406 hits, 816,756 hits since 10/7/2001. Wow. Am I just being petty, or is there a legimate beef with this hit counting?

Holy shit! filchyboy, a blog here at Salon, is somehow related to safersex.org, which is the third site you see when you search for "sex" on Yahoo. Oh, and it's #1 for a search on "sex" on Google. safersex.org isn't a Salon blog, and yet it's got the Radio referer code for *two* Salon blogs in its front page - filchyboy's main blog, and his images blog. Today, according to the rankings, the image blog has received over *4,000* hits since midnight Pacific time - it's 5:15pm PDT right now.

A little more research revealed that only the image blog stats got all the hits for safersex.org - the journal blog stats didn't get any of them. I'm betting this is because the image blog's javascript came after the journal blog's javascript in the safersex.org page. There's actually a third hit counter/referal log thrown in there as well - this one goes to radio.xmlstoragesystem.com. I can't find any rankings or referal pages there, but I'd assume there's something similar to what we've got on Salon.

I'm not saying this guy's a criminal, but he is kind of a dick. His blog didn't get 4000 hits today - another page he owns did. If safersex.org was a Salon blog, I'd be less irritated, but it's not. It's not even running Radio. Filchyboy, if you read this, please, stop being a dick. Take that code out of your page.

Argh - I have to reset all my templates. I'm *hoping* that the backups I kept are able to just roll over into the new one. I'm posting this entry mainly to force everything to re-render...

Just reinstalled Radio - it had completely blown up on me. I'm hoping this'll clear up my problems (upstreaming, memory, etc...).

And my Law and Order DVDs seem slightly out of sync - sound and video. Since the DVD player is also the home theater system, that's potentially very bothersome. For now, I'm just going to assume I'm an idiot and hallucinating...

U.S. Ranks 17th in Freedom of the Press [Slashdot]

Yay us.

Say Hello to Sanjeep, Er, Sam. At Indian call centers, employees are given U.S. identities and taught to sound 'American.' As these back-office operations grow in number, so do the resulting cultural clashes. Manu Joseph reports from India. [Wired News]

I'm fascinated by the export of mass-producable low-level white collar jobs to India: call centers, sustaining programming, etc...cheap workers (I don't know how much Cisco's contract programmers in India make, but I'm betting it's no more than half of what an American doing the same job would get - and there's no benefits.) who speak English fluently. I don't know quite what to make of it, but it's interesting.

Some Guantánamo Prisoners Will Be Freed, Rumsfeld Says. The defense secretary said that a small number of the nearly 600 prisoners would be released to their home countries because they were no longer of interest to the U.S. By Katharine Q. Seelye. [New York Times: Politics]

I'm going to hope that this includes the Kuwaiti 20somethings for whom there's NO evidence at all that they're in ANY WAY connected to al Qaeda or the Taliban.

The Illusory Prague Connection. For an administration that has prided itself on a disciplined approach to public pronouncements, the Bush team has offered confused and scattered assertions about Iraq. [New York Times: Opinion]

"Most Americans — two-thirds, according to a Pew Research poll this month — believe that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq had a hand in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Trouble is, no hard evidence of such a link has been made public." - from the above editorial.

The Times editors pretty much nail the point - sure, both al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein hate the US, and some limited cooperation (safe harbor for on-the-run Qaeda leaders in Iraq, possibly small arms or limited financial aid) but it's pretty comical to think that they're going to bridge their very, very large gaps to come after us in tandem. If the US had been faced by a similar organized Islamicist terrorist network in the '80s, we'd've been cooperating with Iraq against the terrorists, don't forget.

Brazil's Democracy Takes a Chance. If democracy is to persist, one question must be answered: Will democracy better people's lives?/ By Jeffrey W. Rubin. [New York Times: Opinion]

In the case of Brazil, democracy can't do any worse than oligarchy and capitalistic cronyism. The right may be doing well for itself in DC, India, France...but Sweden, Germany, and Brazil show that there are other options.

I'm a bad boy - I'm skipping work today. I just wasn't in the mood to go to work, I've got something like 10 days of PTO waiting to be used, I had to clean out my car