randomWalks

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It was the loveliest landscape I have ever seen: the hypnotic precipices beside us, falling 5,000 ft to jade rivers or lakes of lapis lazuli; the magnificent mountain ranges with the first snow of the autumn lying thinly on them; the gorgeous valleys with their green fields, and willows turning gold and red; the full-bearded men in turbans and green-striped chappans balanced on tiny, out-of-scale donkeys; the village women scurrying like formless ghosts in burkas of blue or white.

originally posted by xowie

Editorial balance:
- Iron Chef Morimoto goes to Philly.
- More hype for Salute to America’s Heroes week.

originally posted by xowie

Eddie Haskell goes to war by James Higdon, and The Utter Failure of Weblogs as Journalism at kuro5hin (both c/o wood s lot)

originally posted by xowie

Cluster bombs are used to cover a broad area rather than a single specific target. The bomblets, or "sub-munitions", contain higher explosive than landmines and their normally brightly-coloured casings make them attractive to children... On average, between 5% and 12% of the bomblets fail to explode, according to UN estimates.

originally posted by xowie

L33t chicks are everywhere, it seems.

originally posted by xowie

Hey feds! We could really use some fucking information right now!

originally posted by xowie

Playthell Benjamin: Even in the Ruins, Race Matters.

Bite Me at Chin Chin.

originally posted by xowie

I decided that what I had embarked on was an intensive meditation retreat. It had all the elements, I told myself: the long hours of silent sitting; the walking back and forth, going nowhere; the grueling schedule and sleep deprivation; the hypnotic, enigmatic chants ("…and if that looking glass gets broke/Mama’s gonna buy you a billy goat..."); the slowly dawning realization that there is nothing to look forward to but more of the same. And at the center of it, of course, was the crazy wisdom teacher in diapers, who assigned more demanding practices than I had encountered in all my travels in India—like "Tonight you will circumambulate the living room for two hours with the master in your arms, doing a deep-knee bend at every other step, and chanting, ‘Dooty-dooty-doot-doot-doo, dooty-dooty-doot-doot-doo.’" Or "At midnight you will carry the sleeping master with you to the bathroom and answer this koan: How do you lower your pajama bottoms without using your hands?"

Honoring 9-11, three asteroids were named Compassion, Solidarity and Magnanimity.

originally posted by xowie

FBI: “the sky is falling”. U: The press release has moved. The original file was named “skyfall.htm”… what the hell?

The once-humble unlucky tourist page has become epic. TouristGuy appears with Bert on page 5.

originally posted by xowie

September 11 Resources is a directory of several hundred sites pertaining to the Current Situation.

It's as though it's 1937 and I'm a bandleader named Freddie Hitler. Maybe we should change the name now. A friend suggested 'Basket of Puppies.'

originally posted by xowie

Sure, The Emmys got cancelled again, and, as a nominee this year, I already found out that I wasn't getting one of those little gold people so who cares if I can't walk down the red carpet in my Bob Mackie gown? I don't even wear a gown -- I wear pants, ill-fitting pants at that! Yesiree, I say, BOMBS AWAY! Rockets red glare! We are all WHITE WITH FOAM!

originally posted by xowie

Wartime Lies: A Consumer’s Guide to the Bombing, Alternet via booknotes.

I mentioned to Joseph Atick of Visionics that the City of London was thinking about using his technology to establish a database that would include not only terrorists but also all British citizens whose faces were registered with the national driver's license bureau. If that occurs, every citizen who walks the streets of the City could be instantly identified by the police and evaluated in light of his past misdeeds, no matter how trivial.

originally posted by xowie

Taxonomy of anti-war chants.

originally posted by xowie

Médecins Sans Frontières today rejected U.S. ‘humanitarian’ airdrops as useless and dangerous. MSF-USA has photos taken by Afghan refugees at a camp near Peshawar.

originally posted by xowie

Wired has done a great job of collecting links about Afghanistan.

Herblock.

originally posted by xowie

MeFi war thread.

originally posted by xowie

Updated info about chemical and biological terrorism at the Stimson Center.

originally posted by xowie