randomWalks

When of tired of playing with Diamonds, Spades, Hearts and Clubs try Joints, Leafs, Bongs and Buds.

originally posted by xowie

There is more than one way to respond to the horror of Sept. 11. And there is more than one kind of patriotism. We forget this. You do not have to rally around Bush and tolerate Cheney's chthonic creepiness and wave a frantic flag and believe every scripted half-truth that drizzles out of the Pentagon, applaud the nonstop attacks on an already demolished nation. Pro-America does not mean pro-war.

"The mission was laid on like General Motors coming to the Afghan war, like we did in Vietnam," Mr Hersh said. At the same time, a company of rangers parachuted onto a Kandahar airfield in an operation portrayed the next day in dramatic TV footage. But in his article, Mr Hersh said that before the drop, an army pathfinder team had checked that the airfield was free of Taliban forces. The raid was for the benefit of the cameras.

originally posted by xowie

"We felt horrible when we learned that the Red Cross … warehouse had been struck," White House chief of staff Andrew Card told Meet the Press. So horrible that at 8 o'clock on the evening of Oct. 25, two more Hornets dropped two 2,000 lb. guided weapons on the warehouses. The next morning a B-52 bomber delivered three more 2,000 lb. smart bombs. A third Hornet dropped another bomb that missed the warehouses and hit a residential area 700 feet to the south.

originally posted by xowie

We should be putting the current international developments in context rather than just having wrestling matches between colourful characters. I've already started writing X-Men as a pacifist comic.

Jerry Kindall says:

According to the latest Ansible, when Isaac Asimov’s Foundation was published in Arabic, the title was translated as… “Al-Qaeda.” Apparently Asimov’s future history is as popular among Arabs as it is among English speakers, and one “Middle East expert” thinks it might well be where bin Laden’s terrorist organization got its name. China Miéville notes that the term has “no political precedent” in the Arabic world and says: “Unlikely as it sounds, this is the only theory anyone can come up with."</blockquote

The Almost Complete Codes List (AVS TiVo Forum) features new codes and easter eggs for the latest TiVo software update.

Am I a Terrorist or a Member of Al-Qaeda or a Taliban Fighter or Not?

If you like explodingdog, you will probably like the book. Please buy one so I can make some of my money back.

So you want to build your own MacQuarium?

originally posted by xowie

NYTM: How ‘The Simpsons’ survives.

originally posted by xowie

Random-Abstract.com - Formerly known as Totally-Useless.com shares this list of domains.

Random dotcoms using whois off of networksolutions
I am sure I missed a whole bunch of them.
Random Drivel.com
Random Whim.com
Random Walks.com
Random Effect.com
Random Babe.com
Random Abandon.com
Random Element.com
Random Games.com
Random Ideas.com
Random Joke.com
Random Penguin.com
Random Oila.com
Random Ridge.com
Random Scribbles.com
Random Soft.com
Random Surf.org
Random Task.com
Random Thought.com
Random Unity.com
Random Violence.com

via MeFi: A picture of weblogs. Cool! randomWalks is represented.

originally posted by xowie

In words unusual for a defense lawyer, Wixted said the case was not about whether the rabbi was a "miserable little piece of dung as a human being" but whether there was sufficient evidence to convict him of soliciting his wife's killing.

originally posted by xowie

TV News Killing Our Precious Verbs (washingtonpost.com)

Pentagon: Afghan village a ‘legitimate target’ (CNN.com) Following up on an earlier story, I guess the US position on bombing innocent people is crystal clear now, if it hadn’t been before:

We hit what we wanted to hit… The people there are dead because we wanted them dead.

B-52s, the crude weapon of the frustrated bully, should be banished to the scrapyard. This campaign, as ministers and their defence advisers are finally admitting, has shown up the poverty not only of military thinking but of the very utility of weapons of war.

The bombing is sending a powerful unintended message to Muslims everywhere that bin Laden is telling the truth when he says that America is at war with Islam. If the bombing campaign carries on into Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, Al Qaeda's hand will be strengthened even more.

originally posted by xowie

The Terrorist Attack on America: an astrological perspective, by Liz Greene.

NYC wants to build a giant dome (last 2 paragraphs) over the WTC site so work can continue through the winter.

You can now watch all of Pixar’s (Steve Jobs' other company) short films at the Pixar website via Apple’s Quicktime. The server seems to be slashdotted so be sure to check back if you can’t get through – this is some witty and beautiful computer animation.

Sisters and brothers should deliver their cash holdings, especially the coin collections in socks, pots and bottles, as well as amounts in secret funds, to the bookkeeper.

"There were no Taliban in the village," said Ahmed, a mechanic who said he is about 20 years old. "There were no tanks or Taliban cars. They just killed innocent people. . . . The plane saw us, and they opened fire. We don't understand why they did that."

originally posted by xowie

A year ago I posted about joining a CSA (community supported agriculture) program. If I were as ambitious and meticulous as Rebecca Blood, I’d give you a careful analysis of whether joining such a program was worthwhile economically, with some consideration of the organic and local nature of the produce thrown in.

Being neither, I’m happy to report that we had a lot of fun getting fresh vegetables every week. We were unfamiliar with cooking (if not eating) some of the vegetables, which inspired us to try a bunch of new recipes – exactly as I’d hoped when we signed up. I especially enjoyed the salad mix we got in early spring and summer and again in the last couple of weeks of the program in fall. Who knew arugula was the most delicious green on earth, and why didn’t anyone tell me?

In the middle of the season they hooked up with a nearby orchard to offer a fruit share – literally the day after I had been thinking of inquiring whether they had considered such a thing(!) – and the locally grown apples were abundant (~dozen/week), crisp, and sweet.

I was a bit surprised we didn’t get more tomatoes and corn, though I understand (thanks to the rad newsletter) that predatory herbivores were a problem this year. We also split a two-person share among my wife, father, and brother, so there you go. In any case we will surely participate again next year.

Skyscrapers are no longer being designed; no one wants to live in them... Buildings will now be more sober, serving the people who live in them. Donald Trump made a big thing of inaugurating his Trump Tower but now he keeps a parachute in his office.

Ha’aretz: U.S. papers: FBI hunting suspected terrorists with Israeli passports. I saw a wire story in which US authorities were officially denying these reports yesterday, but today I wonder: could this be related to the “heightened state of alert” the FBI requested on Monday?