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Two Iranians who work with the Iranian mission to the United Nations were expelled from the U.S. for taking photos of New York City landmarks. An unnamed counterintelligence source gave the following quote:
"You have a commodity worth money on the open market," said one counterintelligence source. "Whether you're going to sell it to the highest bidder or give it to someone who's going to do your bidding, it's valuable information."
Oh yeah, I'm going to get me a piece of that action!
The Mujahedeen-e Khalq is an armed political group opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran whose ideology fuses Islam with Marxist ideals. After being expelled from Iran in 1979, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) established a number of military bases in Iraq and received extensive support from Saddam Hussein for terrorist attacks against Iranian interests.
March 2003: The U.S. invades Iraq.
April 2003: The U.S. bombs MEK bases in Iraq. Media speculates that this may be a "thank you" to Iran for not getting involved in Iraq. Following the bombing, the MEK agrees to a ceasefire with the U.S.. Iran is not happy.
May 2003: The U.S. orders the MEK to surrender its weapons and the MEK capitulates.
June 2003: French police raid MEK offices in Paris and arrest 150 people, including Maryam Rajavi.
July 2003: Rajavi is released from custody. The NYT Magazine publishes an article titled "The Cult of Rajavi".
September 2003: The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs publishes an article titled "Requiem for the People's Mujaheddin?"
December 2003: The Iraqi Governing Council says that the MEK will be expelled from Iraq within a year.
January 2004: Richard Perle speaks at a charity event that might have been linked to the MEK.
February 2004: The Rocky Mountain Progressive Network examines the ties between conservative Republicans and the MEK.
June 2004: A Kuwaiti newspaper claims that the U.S. learned about Chalabi's alleged leak to Iran from the MEK. The changes from the Iraqi Governing Council to the transition government to the new "sovereign" government has raised doubts about whether the MEK will actually be expelled from Iraq.
ThinMan: Myself, Elinor, Dr. Jim Woelfel (philosophy prof.), my sister Rachel on the right, Dr. Diane Fourny on the left serving as witnesses and ring-hander-over-ers. The ceremony was clocked at 5 min 50 sec, by the way.
ThinMan: Myself, Elinor, and our dog Jacques dressed for the occasion. This was just after the ceremony, and the dog was a big hit with all the little kids who were there.
Single Norlosers: Your numbers further dwindle.
http://www.tian.cc/OfficeSpaceWars.wmv
P.O.V. goes to Burdick, KS to document Bill Kassebaum's run for a seat in the Kansas House of Representatives.
When I was out jogging about a week ago, I felt a sharp pain in my foot that quickly faded and I didn't think about it for the rest of the day. The next morning I woke up and my foot was very stiff and very sore, but it didn't seriously impair my ability to walk. I thought, "ok, the worst of it is over, it'll get better from here on out." It didn't. It got worse. So on Friday, I went to my immediate care facility and the doctor diagnosed a minor stress fracture and gave me a stylish post-op boot.
So, instead of participating in Aaron and Elinor's nuptial ceremonies, I ended up watching six movies, reading two books, completing four crossword puzzles and browsing parts of four magazines. Today, when I hobbled down the cafeteria on my building's ground floor, one of the cashiers asked me what happened. After I explained the situation to her, Anya, who's a polish immigrant, told me, "as they say in Poland, 'it won't get better until the wedding.'" I told her if that were true, it would already be better since I missed a wedding over the weekend because of it. A wedding which, according to my parents, was beautiful. My mom and dad were also thankful that the members of the Stephenson Hall table were willing to accomodate them even though I wasn't in attendance. Although, come to think of it, the Steve Hell guys (and associated gals) were probably friendlier because I wasn't there.
Congratulations Aaron and Elinor.
One of the Foer brothers reports in The New Republic that the Bush administration believes that the words "science," "objectivity," and "truth" are guises for an ulterior, leftist agenda and, as a result, refuses to use any hard data in its decision making process. The results, as Franklin Foer illustrates in his article, have not been pretty.
The Wall Street Journal reprinted an article today that originally appeared in this month's American Spectator. The thesis of the article is that the 40 million documented abortions has had a significant impact on recent elections due to "missing voters." This is a meme that anti-abortion groups have been using in commercials, too.
I don't want to waste time pointing out every hole in this "electoral" reasoning, but I do want to draw attention to two points. First, the article and commercial are predicated on the false premise that, if not for the abortion, every one of those 40 million pregnancies would have resulted in an individual who's alive today. They don't factor in the individuals who wouldn't be alive today in spite of the abortion due to spontaneous abortions, aka miscarriages, or the infant and child mortality rate.
The other point that the commercial and article can't control for is children who are alive today who would never have been born if their mother had not had an earlier abortion. Abortion isn't the reason why the average family has 1.87 children, it's that people choose to have fewer children by practicing various forms of birth control. If a woman were to choose to have the child, and not the abortion, then that would have an impact on her future reproductive decisions. I presume a number of women who had abortions later had children that they might not have had if they had already had a child.
Naturally, my second point is almost impossible to measure, but that illustrates the fundamental flaw of the reasoning behind the article and commercial. It's impossible to pull out one method of birth control and calculate its effect on the population without controlling for its interrelationship with other methods of birth control.
Last night, as I was reading in bed, my building started shaking. My first thought was that a car had hit my building, but it was too quiet for that. My second thought was that there must have been natural gas explosion in the area, but I didn't hear any sirens. It couldn't have been an earthquake, though, could it?
What happens when you Google "turnip porn"?
I was looking at random blogs, as I do sometimes, and came across an entry titled Religion is a Smile on a Dog at this blog. It gave me two thoughts.
So I Googled it, and I'm not proud of the results. A lyric from Mrs. Paul Simon and the New Frickin' Bohemians? I'm a loser.
Dr. No and I used to live in Edie's neighborhood of Oak Cliff.
It has been hypothesized that the Icelandic hero Egil suffered from acromegaly. When I read about this medical condition, the first thing to pop into my head was the story about Hercules strangling two serpents as an infant.
Hanging out waiting for Jebus to call me, I was perusing Reason's weblog and and came across its entry regarding Japan's law against selling girls' underwear. This law makes the sale of said panties illegal, thereby drying up a market in which third parties connect used panties with paying customers. The thrust of the argument Reason quotes is that the law will force Japanese schoolgirls willing to sell their undergarments to find those paying customers themselves rather than sell to panty dealers, thereby putting them in danger of meeting creepy men themselves. Therefore, the law creates more danger than it eliminates. (It's unclear from the context whether the Reason writer agrees with this line.)
I agree that this law seems pointless, though I too am flummoxed by the idea that people are turned on by second-hand undies. But this bit of unintended consequences-ness was just too much to let pass. I mean, an unrestricted market keeps the freaks at home with their purchases instead of out on the streets attacking girls? Seems to me that a guy who would attack a young girl would do so with or without the presence of such a law. Plus, a girl willing to sell her panties direct, thereby cutting out the inevitable costs of going through a dealer, would do so whether a law's in effect or not. So relax, free-marketers: This law is weird but it won't itself hurt anybody.
All this assumes the controversy isn't a hoax, which I highly suspect.
My two cents.
Barrack Obama's opponent in the Illinois U.S. Senate race, Jack Ryan, will likely remove himself from the ballot due after the publication of allegations that his ex-wife made during their divorce proceedings. One of the current Illinois Senators said that he thinks "the public stoning of Jack Ryan is one of the most grotesque things I've seen in politics."
Personally, I would hardly characterize the protrayal of the Ryan story in the media as "a public stoning." I'd hardly characterize the columns that I've seen on Ryan story as scathing. Most articles and columns on Ryan take great pains to point out that these are unproven, and likely impossible to prove, allegations during an acrimonious divorce. If you want to see a public stoning, go back and read the vitriol hurled towards Clinton.
Every suggestion that Ryan remove himself from the race is coming the Republican party, not his opponent or the general public. I guess the Republicans realized that Ryan didn't have a chance against Obama even before the allegations became public.
Evidently, diverse heat sensitivity among the bees in a hive moderates temperature more evenly. Hives populated by bees with a similar heat-sensitivity threshold pendulate at a higher amplitude.
It took me a while to find my soundtrack for the day. I started with MTX's Yesterday Rules, but that didn't quite do it. After a song or two, I tried the The Queers, MTX's former label mates. It took less than half of one song to realize that I was heading in the wrong direction. Luna's cover of "Sweet Child O'Mine" led into an Ambulance Ltd. detour. Then it hit me: Lush! Naturally, the melodic rockers who were thrust into the limelight by Lollapalooza II should be my music for the day.
Lolapalooza is no more. A stable of bands from the respectable Sonic Youth and Pixies to up-and-comers the Polyphonic Spree and Brooklyn's own TV on the Radio couldn't seem to draw the tickets.
I have mixed feelings about this. No concert that was around when I was 18 years old should still be going on. What's sad is the recent lineup is terrific. But if I went, I probably wouldn't quite throw myself into it like I did at the Atlanta show 13 years ago. Today, that lineup sounds as appealing as a Hoobastank show (though I'd see Body Count again).
Gina Gionfriddo wrote in the most recent Believer about being a grown woman in her 30s attending an Elliott Smith memorial and how odd it can feel to be a music fan and an adult:
My friends have trained me to treat the ferocity of my musical passions as a shameful secret. The message seems to be this: Listen to whatever you want and like whatever you want, but temper your enthusiasm to suit your advanced age (I'm 34). Praise moderately and possess no evidence of devotion aside from music. That is to say, no "merch," unless intended ironically: vintage Peaches & Herb T-shirt, cool; new Radiohead T-shirt, not cool.
I can relate. A few years back, at a co-worker's wedding, I was placed at the same table as a former member of the Boomtown Rats. And I felt more awkward than anything else.
Already a member of the vaunted Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, Max Falkenstein will be honored this September by the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.
Chuck Klosterman writes about Metallica in therapy.
The weather on Saturday was beautiful so the Madison's bicyclists were out in force. I was zooming home from the gym, when I leapt off a curb on my 30-year old three speed to pass a guy riding some Trek mountain bike in immaculate condition tricked out with shock absorbers in every conceivable location. There was something about the shininess of the bicycle and the plethora of accessories that reminded me of a Lincoln Navigator and I remembered the backlash against mountain bikes that happened over a decade ago.
In the view of many bicyclists, mountain bikes simply ego-boosting toys whose knobby tires suggested ruggedness but rarely actually touched dirt and made riders more likely to slip where mountain bikes are ridden most often: on pavement (subject 8 B 13). Might as well be talking about SUVs.
Just remember, it's not you posting fan fiction based on the TV show Passions.
Check out other fan fiction forums. I'm intrigued by the fact that -- no, not Star Trek -- the top forum is devoted to Stargate SG-1.
Will someone with business sense explain what I am misunderstanding?
Politicians in the developing world believe that U.S. agricultural subsidies depress global commodity prices and should be eliminated. They are probably correct.
So let us say that our government eliminates those subsidies. What happens? Here are some thoughts; please tell me where I'm completely off base:
a) Farm subsidies cease: world commodity prices increase as the future of production is called into question. Developing countries are happy; American farmers are not.
b) Small farms in the U.S. that are currently surviving on subsidies either diversify into niche markets (organic/specialty foods) or die off. The rate of depopulation in the rural Midwest increases dramatically.
c) For 10 to 20 years, developing countries make some gains in production efficiency, but continued political corruption and lack of capital concentration limits their progress.
d) Medium and large-size farms in the U.S. buy the land worth farming from small farmers; U.S. food production shifts into the hands of fewer farmers and "Agricorps" with more investment capital. These larger farmers invest in newer, higher efficiency farming methods, possess the resources to adapt to new environmental restrictions (and fight them more effectively in congress), and own land in a variety of states/climates to mitigate the effects of local disasters. Over those same 10 to 20 years, American farming rebounds, leaner and meaner (in that corporate sense of cold, calculated meanness).
e) American farming "reconquers" the world markets, driving commodity prices down to exterminate weaker competition, then increasing prices once the markets are monopolized.
So am I just dreaming here?
I'm eating some baby carrots right now and they taste really bitter.
The New York Post's Page Six, truly giving us news you can use, presents a controversy involving Larry King and Depends. I'm more intrigued by the other findings in the Star Trash exhibit. I'll try to visit the gallery and bring back a full report.
Mentions of Larry King always make me think of this Onion column.
Q: How many hellx-es does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Eleven. One to screw in the lightbulb and ten to say, "you're looking huge, man, H-U-G-E."
Matt Drudge is reporting that the White House is pissed that Time Magazine reported where Cheney's "secret" bunker is located. A location can't be too much of secret, though, if I read about it in the NY Times four years ago.
Kumar Pallana has kept busy. Last year wasn't so hot, with only The Duplex to his name. A flop to be sure, but did he meet Maya Rudolph? He probably did but doesn't remember. I remember running into him after seeing Bottle Rocket and asking him what it was like meeting the lovely Lumi Cavazos. His response: "Who?"
But this year he collaborates with Spielberg in The Terminal. Check out the brief snippet of him on the cast link, which I can't post because it's a stupid Flash site. Plus, he just completed filming Romance & Cigarettes, the John Turturro musical shot here in Brooklyn. Think it's worth it asking whether he met Kate Winslet?
It's pretty stunning what charisma, an eye for opportunity, a dash of Texas kismet and decades of hard work can accomplish.
From the G-8 Summit to the streets of Havana, here are news photos that have bikes in them.
A Special Dolphin Interaction Session Brings Bud and Sandy Together Again with Flipper
It was an emotional reunion, when after 40 years the original TV stars of Flipper, the 1960’s TV series, Luke Halpin (Sandy) and Tom Norden (Bud), slipped into wetsuits and got into the water once again with everybody’s favorite dolphin superstar Flipper. The reunion took place at Miami Seaquarium, the original film location of the popular adventure show.
“Miami Seaquarium is very proud of its association with Flipper, the TV series,” commented Eric Eimstad, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Miami Seaquarium. “Flipper is an American classic. There is no other place more suited for this momentous reunion than Miami Seaquarium where it all started.”
The reunion represented the first time since the show ended that both Luke Halpin and Tom Norden had been given the opportunity to swim with Flipper once again. The last time the two were reunited was on Flipper’s 25th Anniversary.
Flipper, the TV show, which first aired on NBC in 1964, was an instant hit.
The adventure series featured two boys, Sandy and Bud, befriended by a dolphin, later named Flipper, and their father Ranger Porter Ricks of Coral Key State Park, Florida. The show centered on the adventures of Flipper and the boys and usually ended with Flipper saving the day.
Miami Seaquarium, South Florida’s most popular tourist attraction, is a family-oriented marine-life park open to the public 365 days a year. The park provides visitors with a greater understanding and appreciation for marine life through shows, presentations and marine-life exhibits. More information on Miami Seaquarium is available at http://www.miamiseaquarium.com.
CONTACT: The Conroy Martinez Group, Coral Gables, Fla.
Michelle Palomino / Jorge Martinez, 305-445-7550
michelle@conroymartinez.com or Jorge@conroymartinez.com
Smithsonian Magazine announced the winners of its photo contest in this month's issue. The official bridge of Norlos.com was the subject of one of the winning photographs.
The FBI, in a weekly bulletin to law enforcement agencies, has identified a threat to 10 US cities, including Lawrence, KS, from the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Or so reports FOX News. Who would have guessed Lawrence is a haven for Elves?
As a self-styled DWARF (Down With Anarchic Radical Freaks), I look forward to whatever mayhem, and corresponding retribution, ensues.
Now here's a guy I wouldn't mind putting on the $10 bill -- I like Alexander Hamilton, too, but he was far less funky.
A desiccated human heart that appears to be the heart of Louis XVII was interred yesterday in the Basilica of St. Denis. Louis spent the last three years of his life living in Paris' Temple Prison before most likely dying of tuberculosis at the age of 10.
During his eulogy, Cardinal Jean Honore compared Louis XVII to today's abused children:
"The fragility of a child ... imposes absolute respect in our world today."
While the abuse of children in general is abhorrent, I don't know if I would compare the way that Louis XVII was treated to child abuse. Louis XVII was the great-grandson of Louis XIV, the man who said, "L'Etat c'est Moi." Unfortunately, as a result, Louis XVII was the physical incarnation of all that had been overthrown during the French revolution. It was the prerogative of the revolutionaries to destroy and debase this symbol of the monarchy as they did to many other symbols.
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, particularly the closing ceremony. I wasn't sure why at first. Maybe because Ronald Reagan opened them, or maybe just because they're the first Olympics I can remember?
Now I think I know. I think that, for America, they represented a low point. Now now, not three years ago, not the 1970s. In 1984, we plumbed the depths of our own awfulness, and we plumbed far, far down.
The Russians and several members of the Eastern Bloc sat 'em out in retaliation for the U.S.'s 1980 boycott. So we romped our way through every event. The richest and most powerful nation on earth took medals everywhere. We were like the biggest kid on Halloween -- the one with the rich parents who bought him the most kickass costume -- shouldering aside the little ones standing between him and the candy. The opening ceremonies included 84 powder-blue grand pianos on moving diases (diasi?) spread out over the LA Coliseum floor. Classy.
But it's the closing ceremonies that burn for me the most. A flying saucerswept over the sky and brought a cuddly space alien down to meet the earthlings. To cap the evening, Lionel Richie sang All Night Long while dozens of breakdancers whirled around him. I can still see the lights flashing off Lionel's shiny jacket as the breakdancers sought a toe-hold in the beat.
It was a sad day for America. It also unleashed Cuba Gooding Jr. upon an unsuspecting world.
Slate has some things to say about Tayshaun Prince:
"Call it the knobby-knee factor. After years of getting pushed around in the post, long players channel their inner spazz and project it back on the opposing team. For 48 minutes, the offensive player is subjected to a disconcerting barrage of bony knees and sharp elbows. All the extra cartilage can be distracting and painful. One moment you might get a flapping finger in the eye, and the next your wide-open layup is being batted away."
Sound like anyone we know? I'm eyeballin' you here, hellx.
Texas: leading the nation in regressive sentencing.
I get a lot of compliments when I wear my Run Against Bush t-shirt around Madison. This intrigues me because I think that the t-shirt itself is rather cryptic. Personally, I think the average Madisonian just sees the words "against" and "Bush" right next to each other and automatically assumes that it must be a good t-shirt, even if it doesn't really make much sense.
Wondering just what is going on in the world of prairie turnips these days?
1. It has been a great year for prairie turnips in Kansas. All of the field crews report that there are more of them than ever this year. This is basically impossible given the turnips' slow growing life history, the drought the last two summers, and all of my precise long term data, but who am I to argue with excited field crews?
2. It's a bad year in Nebraska. None of the 175 individuals I follow there produced a single seed this year and most were much smaller than they were the last two years.
3. We don't yet know the status of the p.ts in Montana, but we do know that the book I have been "editing" for Crow Healer Alma Snell (pictured above) has been accepted by a publisher, so I should have more time to focus on the prairie turnips when I show up there in July.
4. More insights may follow, but thus far I have demonstrated, with statistically powerful results that: a) if you dig holes in June you get more bare ground in October than if you don't and b) if you bury old seeds, more of them will disentigrate than if you bury new seeds.
Wow!
Guitarist Robert Quine, one of punk rock's most daring soloists, was found dead Saturday (June 5) in his New York apartment. He was 61. According to close friend and guitar maker Rick Kelly, who discovered Quine's body, the musician died of a heroin overdose Memorial Day weekend. He had been despondent over the recent death of his wife.
Born in Akron, Ohio, Quine was heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground, whose music he recorded obsessively while living in San Francisco. He moved to New York in 1971 and became the lead guitarist for bassist Richard Hell's important group the Voidoids, with whom he recorded two albums. His skittering, unpredictable work with Hell defined the possibilities of punk guitar.
During the '80s, he recorded and toured frequently with Lou Reed and played on saxophonist/composer John Zorn's best-known albums. Quine made key guest appearances on Tom Waits' "Rain Dogs" (1985) and Marianne Faithfull's "Strange Weather" (1987). In 1989, he began a long association with Matthew Sweet; he also worked regularly with Lloyd Cole.
In 2001, Universal released a three-CD box of Quine's live 1969 recordings of the Velvet Underground, "The Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes."
"He was a marvelous guitarist, a soulful music lover with high standards and had an eviscerating wit," Patti Smith Band drummer Jay Dee Daugherty tells Billboard.com. "He did not suffer fools gladly, but made up for it with a thinly disguised generosity of spirit."
-- Chris Morris, L.A.; Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
A group of photographers got together to protest an MTA proposal that would ban amateur photography in the New York subway system.
When I first heard of the proposed ban, I started wondering how exactly the MTA would phrase its statute. If the MTA simply banned photography, I don't see how this statute could be used to stop people from taking digital images since photography refers to a very specific process. The ubiquity of digital image recorders, which are often inaccurately referred to as "digital cameras" even though they aren't cameras, will probably lead the MTA to draft a statute that would ban the taking of photographs and digital images in the subway.
When does digital information become an image, though? Let's say that somebody goes into the subway with a digital image recorder that doesn't have a viewfinder and records information. Has that person taken a digital image? The information recorded is simply a bunch of zeroes and ones, hardly what we would consider an image. How is recording information from which an image could be constructed qualitatively different from going into the subway and making a detailed narrative description?
Norlos readers, please read this post from top to botttom and tell me whether I'm not reading something wrong. Is Jebus really Jebus?
I consider it an honor to have been born during a choice week for pop music. Top of the charts in the U.S. on Dec. 7, 1972? Papa Was a Rolling Stone. In Britain? My Ding-A-Ling. Oh yeah.
By contrast, Dr. No's pop song of the moment in the U.K. the day she was born was She by Charles Aznavour. Or whoever. Looks like the guy who picks up our garbage on Tuesdays. In the U.S.? Sundown by Gordon Lightfoot. I so got off good on this measurement.
Check the top songs in the U.S. and U.K. here.
Also on my birthday, Tom Waits was born.
The history buff in me mourns the passing of a persuasive and influential figure in this country's history. The Salvadoreño in me hopes the door doesn't hit him in the ass on his way to hell.
Moran denies making anti-Semitic remark.
(aka "Indentured Servant to The Man"?)
Elinor and I bought a house a week ago or so, making us homeowners for the first time in our lives, and putting us into more debt than I've seen in my whole life added together. And we didn't exactly take baby steps getting there, either. For the address, you all can look us up in the Address Book site, but suffice it to say we're in East Lawrence. The house is tough to describe, and pretty much has to be seen to be believed. For the New Yorkers out there: including the finished basement, it's about 2600 square feet. No, we don't really have any idea what we're gonna do with each of those feet. But we're workin on it.
We're partially moved in and are living there already. Elinor took a bunch of pictures one afternoon, so if you want to see the place, it's here. Sorry the images are pretty large. And don't ask me why she took pictures of the bathrooms - I couldn't tell you. There's a directory in there called "Before Purchase" - those are shots I took when we were in there looking at the place before we bought it.
As you'll see, we bought the place in a slightly unfinished state, so there's plenty of painting and detail work to do inside, not to mention a dire need for some grass in the yard, but we're still pretty damn happy to wake up in the place every morning, and we can't wait to have friends over for a party. So those of you here for the wedding: Meet us on the deck. Those of you not able to make it this June: Come visit, we have plenty of space.
On a side note for Carlos - Did Nora used to live on East 13th Street, near a fork in the road just past a small creek? My memory is all fuzzy, but I think I remember a party or two in a place like that. If she really was on 13th just where it splits and bends south, then my new place is just a block or so from there.
Speaking of love lives and efficiency, do you know why NBA players make bad lovers? It's because they always shoot in 24 seconds.
i am not sure if they are sexy, but i love the premise of this
http://c.adorablebunnies.com/wrap_it.mpg
thanks tmn.
