"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable." - H.L.Mencken

Clip this, print this, PDA this, memorize this. Because sooner or later, you're going to need it.

From the invaluable Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools

Amazon's 800 number
Impossible to find on the web site

On average I've ordered from Amazon once a week for the last four years or so. Not just books, but power tools, toys, kitchen stuff, the whole lot. Given the volume of my orders I think their customer service is super great; it sets the gold standard for other companies. No other merchant online or offline has provided the ease and accuracy of ordering as Amazon does. Still, in my experience there are occasionally glitches that their email-bots can't deal with, usually entailing a minor billing snafu. In these rare cases you need Amazon.com's almost-secret real-person customer service telephone number. You won't find it on their website. I once got it by calling 800 directory assistance. In any case, they make it hard to find because a call costs Amazon more, so you should jot down these numbers for those special moments when only a human will do:

1.800.201.7575 (Toll free, US and Canada)
1.206.346.2992 or 1.206.266.2992 (Outside US and Canada)
1.877.586.3230 (Canada only)

Last year, an old friend called wrapped in a tsunami of rage and frustration. He too is a heavy Amazon abuser and gotten himself into some sort of high-impact Amazon email ground loop. He needed a human with a voice. But of course Amazon doesn't really believe in this. He had searched for hours on the web site and informed me that he was sitting in his tub, had poured gasoline on himself, and was going to light his last votive candle if I couldn't give him the number. Luckily for him and his neighbors, I did.

Not everyone will be so fortunate. So, don't call me. Use the numbers above. At least until the volume of calls increases and Amazon changes the number to something unlisted.

Tina in her signature "thoughtful
pondering hand hiding the double chin"
pose

Gothamist Interviews: Tina Brown, Editor/Writer/TV Host

Gothamist: Now you host a talk show on CNBC called "Topic A with Tina Brown." My question to you: Why television, why now?
Tina Brown: There is no magazine I want to edit now.

Translation: "After my professional sepuku with Talk Magazine, there is no magazine crazy enough to have me edit it. Most magazines still want to make money. And I have to do something to pass the time until Hillary is elected."

EVIDENCE FOR "THE SLIPPERY SLOPE" @ Deinsea:

The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)

On 5 June 1995 an adult male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) collided with the glass façade of the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam and died. An other drake mallard raped the corpse almost continuously for 75 minutes.

Pointer from the home of stunning links: growabrain.

AS I READ THE CHILLING Jason's rules for the NYC subway (kottke.org) it came to me once more how glad I am not to have these issues as part of my daily routine.

Jason's rules for the NYC subway

1. Get the hell out of my way, I'm coming through.

2. Do not stop at the top of the stairs to put your MetroCard back into your purse/wallet. You are between me and my train.

3. Act more like a particle and less like a wave. When you're weaving all over the platform like a drunken sinusoidal, energetic particles like myself -- who, in keeping with Newton's first law of motion, like to remain in a uniform state of motion until acted upon by an outside force -- cannot easily get past you.

4. Slower traffic keep to the right.

5. Yield to persons crossing the platform from the express train to the local train (or vice versa). They need the right-of-way more than you do for that 15 seconds of your existance on this earth.

6. Have your MetroCard out of its holster before you get to the turnstile. Before.

7. If you are waiting for your train, suppress the urge to wander the crowded platform aimlessly. Pick a spot and stay exactly there. If you need to move, do so with purpose and well-defined direction.

8. I'm embarrassed that I even need to mention this one because it's so bloody obvious, but get out of the way and let everyone off the train before you attempt to board. (Calling Malcolm Gladwell...why haven't you written a NYer article that explains the particularly brain dead human behavior of people crowding into subway cars and elevators before people have exited them?)

9. Get the hell out of my way, I'm coming through.

And, of course, like all New Yorkers now deep into the fugue of forgetfulness and denial, Kottke left out #10.

10. If you're going to open up that cannister of Sarin gas or VX fresh from Iraq by way of Syria, please don't do it until after I've left the subway. Thanks for caring before sharing.

"Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide." -- Robinson Jeffers

HAVING FOUND A SURE THING FOR GETTING THEMSELVES SOME ATTENTION, ISLAMIC SLIME continues to repeat itself: Militants Decapitate South Korean Hostage in Iraq

"We warned you and you ignored it," one of the men said. "Enough lies. Your army is not here for the sake of Iraqis but for the sake of cursed America."

A spokesman for the television network said the tape went on to show one of the men cutting off Kim's head with a knife.

Hours after Kim's body was found, the U.S. military launched its second airstrike in four days against suspected safe houses for Zarqawi's network in Falluja. The attack destroyed a garage and killed four people, locals said.

"Killed four people...." That's nothing to the inhabitants of Fallujah. Nothing at all. Wouldn't get their attention if air strikes killed four a day for a year. It just isn't enough of a shock to the noble inhabitants of that fabulous vacation paradise.

Since it does not seem as if the current administration has enough focus and courage to visit some extreme solutions on Fallujah and other outposts of swine throughout the region, perhaps the Koreans themselves can come up something.

But no. They will not. Instead it will be more of the same for many more weeks and months. The act will be called 'barbaric' and the nations concerned will state that they 'will not negotiate' with terrorists. 'Justice will be sought.' But, really, so what? So what?

The terrorists do not and never had expected to have any negotiations take place. All they expect is for their captive to die and for the media of the world to run their snuff tapes and for the ghouls of the world to search the web for them and... and.... and so it goes.

At some point, after an unknown number of innocent people have been killed in a public and barbaric manner, the Islamites involved will find their limit.

On that day, those people and, alas, tens of thousands of their neighbors -- who may or may not have known, who they were and what they were about will probably be reduced to ash. Perhaps a demonstation of death on a wholesale scale will sate the lust for death that seems to have latched onto the soul of the middle east.

Until then, heads will continue to roll. And the cameras will roll on in their coverage. And our heads of state will roll out their platitudes. It is all just a period in which the lives of the innocent will continue to be squandered.

But the middle-east and Islam has been running up a very big butcher's bill over the last few decades. Soon it will come due. Payable. In full.

SciScoop || Quantum Teleportation Of Matter Demonstrated

Now the quantum-research branch of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced the first quantum teleportation of ordinary matter - the atoms from which you and I are made.  Their teleportation gizmo is not the Star Trek style transporter quite yet.  Instead of making an atom itself vanish and reappear far away at another place, the latest NIST experiment transfered the quantum properties of an atom  instantaneously to another atom that was already far away.  The far-away atom didn't become a "twin" of the original test atom;  it effectively became the original atom itself, without having to be moved through space.  A subtle distinction, but an important one in a breakthrough experiment on ordinary matter like that all around and within us.

"Ever wondered if there's a literary equivalent of someone attacking a hanging side of beef with a chain saw? Wonder no more." -- James Lileks

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

-- Unfairenheit 9/11 - The lies of Michael Moore. By Christopher Hitchens

Click to enlarge

AN EMAIL THIS MORNING asked: "Can you guess what this is?"

The broad "guess" isn't hard if you've been aware that last week we could see, if we lived in the right place, something that no one alive has seen in the heavens: The Transit of Venus.

But if you lived in exactly the right place during the Transit of Venus, you saw something more, something that, when you think about it, is truly a miracle.

But what is it that you are seeing in this picture? Take a guess. Answer tomorrow if the comments don't catch it before then.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO JUST DON'T HAVE TIME FOR AndrewSullivan's Daily Dish on Mondays, we've prepared a lite version below. The original weighs in at 2098 words, but we've pared it down to 478. This way you can get the essential Sullivan in one fifth the time:

RETHINKS: Mike Kinsley kills own editorial -- I remark that my blogging had inconsistent positions and rife with conflicts. Ask for slack. For Kinsley too.
- 5:35:47 PM
 
CALABRESI: Volokh
- 5:25:54 PM
 
BEGALA NOMINEE: "Supreme Court -- Bush /Gore =Mussolini / King of Italy = Hindenburg / Hitler. Bush not Hitler. Bush = Mussolini. Franklin Roosevelt same but elected big." - Calabresi , judge 2nd Circuit Court Appeals.
- 4:08:13 PM
 
ELECTROCUTION? Iraq prison badness "... electrocution genitals, rape and murder -- Saddam's former torture-palace. approved by higher-ups? Rumsfeld? I harangued for continuing to write -- huge deal if torture sanctioned secret + the president, against law. Need to know -- Rumsfeld authorize ? responsible? -- scape-goat underlings -- exonerate Rumsfeld? Supoena, say I.

BBC EXPOSED: Devastating - true.

BECAUSE CAN: Child-molesting priests protected by Vatican -- sickening, important --vital.

GOD'S PARTY: Republicanism = holy war. Karl Rove / Ralph Reed make it. My column -- GOP abusing faith -- political ends -- opposite .

APPEASEMENT: foreign desk editor-- Lebanon + Syria -- people there -- friends -- Sharkansky sticks boot.
- 12:21:03 AM
 
QUOTE DAY 1: "Conservative -- SF marriages, adoption by same-sex , and NH Episcopal bishop. Gays married + children + church = OK. Next -- school vouchers, boycot HBO + Republican. Arguing not happening w/ conservatives -- formats radio/TV = no debate. Tone not trial of Socrates = Johnnie Cochran to O.J. jury." - P.J. O'Rourke , Atlantic.

QUOTE DAY 2: "Deborah Solomon: Abu Ghraib okay?

Trent Lott: Mississippi said: 'America #1.' Interrogation not Sunday-school. No American lives saved withholding pancakes.

DS: Unleashing killer dogs + naked Iraqis not = withholding pancakes.

TL: Did dogs bite / assault?" - From NYT Magazine .

PEACE PROCESS: I amused @ UN: doves of peace, released "dead before dropped like a brick.'" inquiry. Dead dove? Priceless.

KRAMER VS SULLIVAN: Kramer Reagan = Hitler . I respond = Advocate. I surprised by Goldberg last week -- I not playing to gay = non-endorsement of Bush -- I alienate gay establishment -- against shibboleths. Oppose hate crime; reservations re: non-discrimination; favor Boy Scouts discrimination but deplor discrimination; challenge AIDS orthodoxy: battle victimology endorse Dole Bush over Gore praise drug companies HIV treatment. Very few gay controversial as I -- happens I believe Constitution not place = social policy+ marriage = l right for all not straight ones = I say all audiences. Always.

BLOGGING CONVENTIONS? Bloggers more statement = not going to infomercials; schmooze-fests for journalists, pundits politicals + corrupting donor parties -- political importance = television shows. New York = fun -- hang outside with left-wing freaks, not inside with right-wing freaks. Rationalizing Ptown? No. You kidding?
- 12:20:39 AM
 
GAY LIFE: List of occupations -- gay applicants -- marriage licenses -- Massachusetts -- Week1: [insert 360+ job descriptions]

Challenge. Think of straight who does job, tell him/her no marry -- spouse = room mate -- children take away any time. Gay people live this every day; are treated sub-human -- beneath citizenship. Endit.

Click to enlarge

Imagine walking outside to hop on the company bicycle for a trip to the other side of the compound. Just before you plop your bee-hind down on the seat, you stop. "What's that buzzing sound," you wonder. Then, just as you raise your rump, you realize the ruckus is right below you. "Yikes," you yell, as the yellow and black covered bee-hive humms to life. -- Photo of the Week - Naval Safety Center

TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL covers the debacle of the Liberal/Left Radio experiment "Air America" in excrutiating detail. In a front page story, Inside Air America's Troubles: Optimism and Shaky Finances (Subscription Required), the outline of the "network's" start up days is notable for the long sequence of lies that began at the top and percolated down through the entire organization.

Of course, Air America's "million-dollar-a-year-man," Al Franken doesn't really see the sordid history of vapor cash at the company as a collection of lies. Franken explains them as: "In a startup, says Mr. Franken, people often exaggerate what they have. Mr. Cohen, he says, "did just that, and somehow got us on the air. For that, I guess I owe him some gratitude." We imagine that Mr. Franken has learned, over the years, how lies can result in profits for himself. Except in this case it would seem Franken himself was shortchanged:

" Mr. Franken had negotiated a pay package valued at more than $1 million a year, according to a copy of the contract viewed by The Wall Street Journal. On the evening of April 26, Mr. Goodfriend says he was asked by Mr. Cohen to show Mr. Franken a deposit slip that would prove he'd been paid a portion of his salary. Mr. Cohen says he only asked Mr. Goodfriend to negotiate with Mr. Franken.

"The next day, Mr. Goodfriend went to Mr. Franken's Manhattan apartment to meet Mr. Franken's wife, who manages her husband's finances. Over the Frankens' kitchen table, the two tore open an envelope sent over by Mr. Cohen that they thought was going to contain proof of the payment. All they found was a stack of irrelevant documents. "

Ooops, no pay slip. One would think that Mr. Franken would have noticed the deposit of a portion of one million dollars into his bank account. Evidently not. Nevertheless, the pattern of one party claiming one thing at Air America and another party denying it seems to be a normal way of doing business. That and short-changing junior staff or just, in the end, stiffing them:

"On March 30, the night before Air America went on the air, the liberal radio network threw itself a $70,000 party at Manhattan's hip Maritime Hotel....

"Today several employees say they still haven't been reimbursed for the costs of attending the New York launch. "It was a fun party, until I knew I was paying for it," says Bob Visotcky, Air America's former Los Angeles market manager, who hasn't been reimbursed for his hotel room and flight."

The primary forces behind the launch of Air America were "Guam-based entrepreneurs Evan M. Cohen and Rex Sorensen." Why, if liberal talk radio was such a hot idea, those wealthy liberals promoting it had to go to a couple of guys from Guam to get it rolling, isn't really clear.

What is clear is that, for all the talk heard from around the liberal cantons, there weren't really all that many of them ready to open their wallets:

"Messrs. Walsh and Saade say Mr. Cohen told them that TV producer Norman Lear had given Air America $2 million and pledged another $2 million. They also say Mr. Cohen told them that Laurie David, wife of comedian Larry David, had invested $2 million and pledged another $4 million.

"Buoyed by the good news, Mr. Walsh told reporters on a March 11 conference call that the network was "well on our way" to raising "upward of $30 million" by its planned March 31 launch.

In fact, Mr. Lear and Ms. David were approached by Mr. Cohen but didn't invest, their spokespeople say."

This pattern of claiming investments from wealthy liberal investors was, evidently, part of Cohen and Sorensen's stock and trade. As was stiffing people they had agreed to pay from the small to the large, starting with the couple that had the "big idea" that a liberal radio network was just what the leftist Doctors of America ordered:

"Air America was conceived by a wealthy Chicago couple, Anita and Sheldon Drobny. Mr. Drobny is a venture capitalist and liberal activist who writes an occasional column for a Web site that has compared Republican control of Congress and the White House to the Nazis' rise to power in Germany. ....

Mr. Cohen teamed up with Mr. Sorensen, 58, a business partner and the founder of Sorensen Pacific Broadcasting Inc., a network of five radio stations in Guam and Saipan. The two men agreed to buy the concept from the Drobnys for about $1 million, according to four people familiar with the transaction. The Drobnys haven't yet been paid. Messrs. Cohen and Sorensen say payment was based on performance milestones that haven't been met. "

Performance milestones which, if they existed, now seem never to be met. Still, seeing a turkey coming down the street for miles did not dissuade Cohen and Sorensen from continuing to pretend the glass was half-full when the glass had never even been a quarter full:

"Many of Air America's investors and executives say they thought the network had raised more than $30 million, based on assurances from its owners, Guam-based entrepreneurs Evan M. Cohen and Rex Sorensen. In fact, Air America had raised only $6 million, Mr. Cohen concedes. Within six weeks of the launch, those funds had been spent and the company owed creditors more than $2 million.

When the problems came to light, "we realized that we had all been duped," says David Goodfriend, the company's acting chief operating officer. Messrs. Cohen and Sorensen say they didn't mislead anyone about the company's finances. They say they planned to invest more over time but didn't because of cultural differences with other managers"

Ah, those "cultural differences," which may mean "We don't want to throw good money after bad," but is more likely to mean that they didn't have any money to throw to begin with. It would seem that the primary funders and raisers for Air America were famous in Guam for what they would become famous for in the United States, stiffing people:

"Joe Calvo, the general manager of Guam's Pacific Telestations Inc., which owns TV and radio stations, says Mr. Cohen's defunct ad agency owes him $20,000. Mark Pangalinan, president of Guam conglomerate M.V. Pangalinan Enterprises, says the same ad company owes his real-estate division four years in rent; it also owes another division several years' worth of employee health-insurance premiums. Mr. Cohen denies owing both companies money. Mr. Goodfriend says he thought Mr. Cohen was a successful businessman and says he was unaware of these disputes. "

But when the chance to stick it to George Bush is dangled in front of some people, it quickly becomes a case of "Fools rush in where fools have been before. Enter Mark Walsh, a 50-year-old former America Online Inc. executive, had run an e-commerce site called Verticalnet Inc., which was briefly one of the highest-flying dot-com stocks with a peak value of $12.4 billion. More recently, Mr. Walsh headed Internet operations for John Kerry's presidential campaign."
Of course, Mr. Walsh did not think of himself as a fool. He was a savvy executive and asked to see some proof of net-worth:

"Mr. Walsh says he asked Mr. Cohen for proof of his assets. The entrepreneur showed Mr. Walsh documents that Mr. Cohen represented as real-estate and cash holdings valued at millions of dollars, Mr. Walsh says. Mr. Cohen denies saying the assets were his alone. He says the documents combined his assets with those of Mr. Sorensen and another business partner, Brooklyn real-estate developer Charles Cara. "

Obviously oblivious to the extent to which a determined person might use copiers and Kinko's to pad their portfolios, Mr. Walsh bought it all. Or perhaps Mr. Walsh, like so many others attached like remora to Air America, just needed to believe in lies and the lying liars who told them.

Be that as it may, the fact that Air America was living in The Land of No Money was increasingly evident to creditors of all shapes and sizes:

"But bills weren't getting paid. Mr. Visotcky, the former Los Angeles market manager, says he discovered in March the company hadn't paid the rent on its office space there. He lost his job later when Air America was kicked off the air in that city. Mr. Cohen says the rent wasn't paid because of a contractual dispute. In April, vendors stopped delivering office supplies because they weren't getting paid and contractors, such as electricians, complained their checks weren't arriving.

One of the network's on-air personalities, Randi Rhodes, formerly of WJNO in West Palm Beach, Fla., opened her own checkbook when her staff wasn't paid. Ms. Rhodes says she found "a group that was running the place that was absolutely not up to it." The New York studio had no air conditioning and some technical equipment didn't work. In its first few days, the network sometimes sputtered off the air.

Mr. Cohen concedes the company should have had tighter financial controls and blames the cash crunch on perks such as car services. "

Ah, yes, those pesky "car services." The last refuge of scoundrels who could not put up or shut up. It wasn't the immense void of advertising interest in Air America that did them in, nor was it the fact that from the moment it was a gleam in the eye of the wealthy but wacky couple from Chicago Air America was stillborn, nor was it the unabashed greed of Al Franken in thinking he could start at one million a year and work up, nor was it a long and now carefully documented tissue of lies, that put Air America on the air with but a wing and a secular prayer. No, it was perks that did them in! The wanton and continuing abuse of 'car services.' Clearly, if Air America really wanted to be a success all it had to do was get the staff to agree to patronize mass transit en masse. After all, that's part of the liberal creed, isn't it?

In the end, those responsible for the limping liftoff of Air America continued to do what all good liars do. They parse the meaning of what is is and keep right on lying:

"[The board] asked Messrs. Cohen and Sorensen to resign and hand over voting control of their shares to Mr. Goodfriend, according to three people familiar with the negotiations.

"After the meeting, Air America executives examined the company's finances. "When we finally gained access to the bank accounts, we realized they were empty," Mr. Saade says. Mr. Cohen denies the bank accounts were empty although he concedes there wasn't much money left."

The bottom line? There never was much bottom line to Air America and it will now continue to exist only by the kindness of liberal strangers willing to dump excess cash into the drain from now until the elections, if then. But will the lies continue? Not at all. What we will see will be, as Mr. Franken parses it, just a little exagerration from time to time.

THERE ARE TIMES WHEN YOU REALLY have to question if NASA is spending its budget wisely.

Gingerbread Cassini

"Learn about spacecraft parts and then eat them. Education never tasted so good."

1. Fill the ice cream cone 2/3 full of cake mix. Bake according to the cake mix instructions, just as for a cupcake.

2. Place a layer of frosting on top of the “cake.”

3. Fold the licorice in half and poke the ends into the cake. The licorice should make an inverted V sticking out of the cake. This represents the support structure on the interior of Cassini’s high-gain antenna dish.

4. Using frosting as glue, place two disk candies around the inside of the top of the ice cream cone. These represent the Sun sensors that tell the spacecraft where the Sun is.

5. Cut a hole in the ice cream cone right under the cake “antenna.” Insert the chocolate wafer into the cone. Using frosting as glue, place a marshmallow on the end of the chocolate wafer. This represents the magnetometer boom.

6. Holding the cone with the chocolate wafer pointing to the right, take the candy mint and attach it to the side of the cone that is facing you. Use frosting as glue. This represents the Huygens probe.

-- SSE: Kids: Paper Models

JAMES LILEKS, EAT YOUR SHORTS! They say you can get anything on Ebay, but if that's true I would have preferred one with a dust jacket. "Oh, well, you can't have everything. Where would you keep it?"

The things Americans were interested in
during last month as reflected in Google
search requests. Compiled by
Google Press Center: Zeitgeist

EXCERPTED FROM The First Terrorist War

4. The Goal of Radical Islam is Our Destruction

The consequences of a political and military stand-down would be to allow our enemies the time, basing and mobility to grow in numbers, advance in training, achieve greater tactical position within and about our borders, and acquire ever more sophisticated and powerful weapons. Once they have advanced to the next level of lethality they will strike us again with an effect on our lives, liberties, property and economy more extreme than 9/11.

The goals of the Radical Islamic forces arrayed against us are the same as their factotums, the Palestinians, have for Israel. In the jihad against Israel we can see what the Islamic forces have in mind for us: the complete destruction of our systems, the occupation of our land, the usurpation of our government, and the death or conversion of all our citizens. These are the goals of Radical Islam as understood by their fundamentalists and as tolerated by the vast majority of believers.

Much has been written about these goals. Most of our scholars conclude they are only fantasies, but a nuclear weapon detonated in Seattle does not care if a fantasy set it off.

Whether the goals of Radical Islam can be achieved is a matter for history to determine. It is the belief that they can be achieved that brings the First Terrorist War upon us. To the extent that we fail to recognize the intensity and commitment of our enemies in this war; to the extent we fail to match their passion for our destruction with our passion for victory; to the extent we cast our lot with process as they cast their lot with their God, we weaken our ability to decisively defeat them.

Ours is a "war on terror" while theirs is a "Jihad." Our efforts are a process. Theirs are directed by divine mandate. Whether you are of a secular or religious persuasion, it is well to remember that if you go to war you'd best have God on your side.

As such it is time to put away the frayed and weak designation of our actions as the "war on terror" for it is not "terror" that shooting wars engage. Wars engage combatants, armies, populations, institutions, nations and religions. It is unpopular, almost unsayable, to designate the First Terrorist War as a religious war, yet all serious people know that this is the case and that this, in the end, is what it shall come to.

5. The War of Two Religions

Through the violent attacks of a Radical Islam, two religions have been brought into conflict. The first is that of Islam, a faith that at its core requires absolute submission from its adherents, and looks towards the subjugation of the world as its ultimate apotheosis. As the youngest of the monotheistic religions, Islam is at a point in its development that Christianity passed through centuries ago. And it is not with Christianity that Islam is currently at war. Islam is saving that for the mopping up phase of its current campaign. The religion that Islam has engaged is a much younger one, the religion of Freedom.

As a religion Freedom has been gaining converts since the success of the American Revolution enabled it to go forth and be preached to the world. Freedom is easily the most popular of the new religions and historically converts nearly 100% of all populations in which it is allowed to take firm root. This is the religion which we have lately brought to Iraq.

The genius of the religion of Freedom is that it allows all other religions, from the venerable to the trivial, to exist without fear of censure or destruction. Indeed, the only thing that the religion of Freedom firmly forbids is the destruction of Freedom itself. "Thou shalt not destroy Freedom" seems to be the only commandment. And Freedom has been shown to resist efforts to destroy it in the most ferocious way. It's enemies would do well to ponder the fate of previous attempts to do so.

On September 11, the agents of Radical Islam began their attempt to destroy Freedom by attacking it at its core. The reaction of Freedom to this assault has been, once you consider the destructive power of the weapons systems it possesses, measured, deliberate and cautious. This is because Freedom, although sorely wounded, does not yet feel that its very existence is threatened. A more serious attack at any time in the future will put paid to that specious notion.

Following a second attack at a level equal to or exceeding September 11, any political opposition to pursuing our enemies with all means at our disposal will be swept off the table. The First Terrorist War will begin in earnest and it will not be a series of small wars with long lead times and a careful consultation of allies. The war will become, virtually overnight, a global war of violent preemption and merciless attack towards the spiritual and geographic centers of our enemy. Arguments revolving around the true meaning of "imminent" will be seen as they are -- so much factional prattle. Due to the nature of the enemy, the First Terrorist War will be fought here and there and everywhere. It does not matter when or where the second serious strike on the American homeland takes place, it only matters that on the day after this country will be at war far beyond the current level of conflict.

THIS WAS PAUL JOHNSON, AN AMERICAN, before he was captured by the enemies of our country and our civilization; an enemy that we are still coddling, still endeavoring to "reason with" at home and abroad, an enemy towards whom many among us would like to extend the full range of benefits and rights given to American citizens.

This was Paul Johnson. He looks a lot like a lot of us, doesn't he?

If you can bear to look: Here is what was done to Paul Johnson.

If you cannot bear to look, I will tell you what the pictures show.

In the first picture, Paul Johnson's head is supported by a knife lodged in his forehead.

In the second picture, Paul Johnson's head is held by the hair and dangled over the body.

In the third picture, Paul Johnson's head has been placed on the small of his back.

The people who did this, and the nations that harbor them, and the religion that supports and condones them are the things that we contend with now.

What was done to Paul Johnson would be done to any of us, at any time, with relish and with glee, because we are Americans.

That's the reason and that is the goal.

Perhaps it is time we got out of the business of pursuing this war on the retail level.

I think it is long past time to move to the wholesale level in this particular conflict.

If you do not, how many Paul Johnson's will it take? A dozen, a hundred, a thousand? A city full?

Pick your number, because sooner or later your number will be up.

A Q&A; EXCHANGE from Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers

Would the United States make better progress in the War Against Terrorism by de-Islamifying their environment, rather than trying to kill or capture individual hedgehogs?

Hanson: "Perhaps. I wish we would quit the deference to insane things like "not fighting during Ramadan," or allowing us to be shot from mosques, and simply wage an information campaign against these mullahs: to let the world know of their relatives in America; their bank accounts; their criminal records. The American people would like to know how many children, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren are in our universities whose sires are mullahs in Iran, thugs in the West Bank, or corrupt grandees in the Gulf. That would have enormous value in undermining the pretense that the Islamicists want nothing to do with the West. In fact, they are parasitic on it, and exist for it in a strange, very unhealthy way. Osama's webmaster did not learn his decadent Western craft in the Middle East."

OUR MEDIA MOLES AT THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY have recently sent us the soundtrack for the upcoming commercial featuring Al Gore and some of the remarks he plans to make at the The MoveOn National MeetUp in Boston (Otherwise known as "The Democratic National Convention"). The visuals have been sent back for some retouching but we did get the still above as an attached file.

The MP3 sound file is at the link below. Here's our transcript:

ME GOREGAR. ME SPEAK. HEAR ME. FEEL MY POWER!

Goregar speaks.

Goregar speaks of the ultimate challange, of untold mystery, of the Kerry candidacy and the Clinton Restoration. Goregar ...speaks ... to you.

ME GOREGAR. ME LIVE.

The voice of Goregar speaks of a first, of a .... breakthrough, of a feat that will never again know the same significance. Because Goregar speaks. Goregar is the first and only talking version of Al Gore.

ME GOREGAR. BEAT ME.

The mighty words of Goregar thunder echoing throughout the Democratic Party and the message is strong and clear: With the advent of Goregar it is no longer Democrat versus Republican, but Humans versus Monsters.

ME GOREGAR. SEE ME. HEAR ME.

Goregar speaks of a whole new dimension of politics, of tantalizing excitement and irresistable appeal, of new electoral vote level that have only previously been imagined. Goregar speaks of supremacy --- of a magic that could be created only by a monster that speaks -- only by a monster with a pulsating , beating spleen that fills and pounds with excitement, that urges bash on with every beat, of a monster that comes alive with each Abu Garhib Polaroid.

ME GOREGAR. ME GOT YOU. ME NOT... LET... GO. BEAT GOREGAR.

Goregar's words speak of challenge, of a challenge that cannot be denied.

ME GOREGAR. HEAR ME. MY... WORDS... ARE.... FOR... YOU.

Hear Goregar now at the place where: Goregar Speaks

Click to Englarge

I heard they exploded,
The underground blast,
What they say's gonna happen,
Gonna happen at last,
That's the way it appears.
They tell me the fault line
Runs right through here.
-- John Hartford

PERHAPS GEOGRAPHY IS DESTINY AFTER ALL, as the subtext for this otherwise bland caption for a startling image indicates:

The Sinai Peninsula, located between Africa and Asia, is a result of those two continents pulling apart from each other. Earth's crust is cracking, stretching, and lowering along the two northern branches of the Red Sea, namely the Gulf of Suez, seen here on the west (left), and the Gulf of Aqaba, seen to the east (right).

-- From NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission

AMERICANS, BRITONS, FILIPINOS, SOUTH AFRICANS, HINDUS, ITALIANS are all fit to be murdered. "We ask Allah to accept this offering from your hands."

FROM MEMRI: Special Dispatch Series - No. 731

The 18th issue of the Al-Qa'ida-identified journal 'Sawt Al-Jihad' included an interview with Fawwaz bin Muhammad Al-Nashami, commander of the Al-Quds Brigade that took responsibility for the May 29 attack at Khobar, Saudi Arabia, in which 22 people were killed. The following are excerpts from the interview:

The First Attack: 'We Tied the Infidel by One Leg [Behind the Car] -- Everyone Watched the Infidel Being Dragged'

Sawt Al-Jihad: "How did you begin [the operation]?"

Al-Nashami: "As soon as we entered, we encountered the car of a Briton, the investment director of the company, whom Allah had sent to his death. He is the one whose mobile phone on the seat of his car, with the blood on it, they kept showing [on television]. We left him in the street.

"We went out, and drove our car. We had tied the infidel by one leg [behind the car]. We left the company [compound] and met the patrols. The first to arrive was the jeep of a patrol, with one soldier, and we killed him. With the rest we exchanged fire, and we got through....

"The infidel's clothing was torn to shreds, and he was naked in the street. The street was full of people, as this was during work hours, and everyone watched the infidel being dragged, praise and gratitude be to Allah.

"When we arrived at one of the bridges, we encountered an ambush of jeeps of the Tawaghit dogs [i.e. Saudi government troops] and the guards of the Americans, and we exchanged fire with them. [2] When we crossed the bridge, the rope [by which the Briton was tied] snapped and the body of the infidel fell in the middle of the intersection, between the four stop signs, and everyone who was stopped at the stop signs saw the infidel on the day that he fell from the top of the bridge....

The Second Attack: 'We Are Mujahideen, and We Want the Americans… We Shot Him In the Head… We Slit His Throat'

"...[T]he brothers were wonderfully calm and serene, as if they were on a hike.

"We entered and found youths from the Arabian Peninsula [i.e. Saudi Arabia] wearing the Aramco uniform. They asked, 'What is going on?' We told them, 'Calm down, don't be afraid, we don't want you. We want only the Americans.'

"We entered one of the companies' [offices], and found there an American infidel who looked like a director of one of the companies. I went into his office and called him. When he turned to me, I shot him in the head, and his head exploded. We entered another office and found one infidel from South Africa, and our brother Hussein slit his throat. We asked Allah to accept [these acts of

Continued...

In an age when bravery itself is suspect and achievement considered a kind of oppression; when every new technology is hedged around with anticipatory restrictions it is wonderful to know that some men at least would like nothing better than to rise on a column of fire toward the beckoning stars. For every successful flight of this nature slips not only the "surly bonds of earth" but also breaks hidebound modes of thinking. It departs not just from a place but from a time. It takes us not from where we ought to be, but to where we belong.

-- The Belmont Club on SpaceShipOne's Historic Space Launch Attempt Scheduled for June 21

.... or, as one of my emails said this morning, "Now, THIS is a good use of technology..."

After Dave Winer killed off 3,000 blogs by taking them down and redirecting their urls to his own stumbling experiment in audioblogging... a NINE MINUTE JESUS WEPT DAVE WINER BLATHERFEST! *** , I saw it as just another in a long line of cries for help from Dave. And, since Dave's cries for help inevitably come to resemble a large carbuncle festering on your prefrontal lobes, I determined to avoid commenting and thus, hopefully, reduce the size of said carbuncle. .

Still, like carbuncles, you just can't leave some things alone. Then again, what can one say above Uncle Dave that hasn't been said a million times before? Zero. Nada. Niente. Bubkis.

Alas, as usual, I lack imagination. Fortunately, others do not. It only took a few days for the audio mixes to show up. : Waxy.org: Daily Log: Dave Winer Remix Contest

Yes, in audioblogging it is true that feedback's a bitch. The best example, so far, is Dan Dickinson's mini-masterpiece "I'm Sorry Dave Winer Remix."

Another one is Brian Dear's People Just Love to Jump Up and Down.

Heres my transcription which is itself a remix to the two remixes above:

My feeling is that people just don't read these days...
So if you want to present a subtle idea,
that's just not a good way to do it....

Formats and protocol is just a deadly combination for me....
Formats and protocol is just a deadly combination for me....

But what can I do for people...
(I'm sorry)
But what can I do for people...
(I'm sorry)
But what can I do for people...
(I'm sorry)

I understand that people
Would like to have their site
But I couldn't work that out....
(I'm sorry)
(I'm sorry)

People just love to jump up and down
And people just love to jump up and down
And basically certain things happen
And people will jump up and down
And just accept that....

It was very clear that like smoking cigarettes
(Hack..... cough)
I guess what I'm saying is

Anyway so that's about it.
That's about it
That's about it
That's about it

Good night.

Good night, Dave. Sweet Dreams.

*** For the sake of your sanity, the admirable Jeneane Sessum has actually transcribed Winer's Lament.

Click to englarge

IT IS ALWAYS FASCINATING to see the steps behind making an amazing illustration. Case point: Kevin Hulsey's stunning cutaway of the Radiance of the Seas. As he modestly states: "Size: 36" @ 350 dpi, 640 mb CMYK File with 35 Layers / Illustration Time: 720 hrs."

Yes, 720 hours. That would be one month. Solid. 24/7. No breaks.

If he can put in those kind of hours, you can put in the five minutes it takes to read how it was done. Well worth it.

Detail from Illustration Above

One of the Benefits AquaMinds' NoteTaker is that you can make endless notebooks of links from web pages you like. One of the curses of AquaMinds' NoteTaker is that those of us interested in the Structuring of a Linkblog can inflict these stacks of notes on our readers. Here's my stack from today.

Tentacles, Suckers and Slime, Oh My!: New Zealand Sea Creature: Basking Shark or Plesiosaur? -- or simply a chance for an extremely large portion of deep-friend calimari?

Testosterone Moments: Learn the truth about the Ferrari Enzo and compare it to the truth about the Dodge Ram SRT-10 at Robert Farago's "The Truth About Cars," home of the best hands-on automobile reviews on the web.

Won't Get Fooled Again: If you've ever been a victim of the many "Crimes of Persuasion" such as Schemes, Scams, Fraud ( investment fraud, consumer rip-offs, senior scams, telemarketing fraud, pyramid schemes, elderly victims, internet email scams, Nigerian fraud, swindles, shonks ). this site will probably have your number.

Saint Typo is Ours. Who is yours? Choose one or more of The Six Patron Saints of Graphic Design

Buddhism and Christianity come together in this classic Zen Koan. "Koan" -- as in One Hand Clapping.

Two, Two, Two Things Are One: The high concept here is that all you need to know about anything can essentially be known if you know The Two Things that are essential to know.

Get a Whole New Look Out of That Old Black Tee-Shirt: "I'll be your Ninja tonight!"

Now That You've Given Up Cigars you are probably wondering what to do with that very expensive humidor you got just before the IPO in 1999. Wonder no more becausemini-itx.com is "at your server" [sic]. And if you happen to come across an old Underwood Typewriter here's your chance to get many more years of functionality out of it.

Photographs Worth Checking Out include AK47's Boxing Boys and Suburban Dreams as well as Barbara Coles's work made by bringing togther a model, diaphenous clothing, a swimming pool and a Polaroid.

Our Number One Pick for Dumb Comic Book Covers is over on the side bar. But there are still eleven choices left right here.

Dead Last on Our Amazon Wish List would have to be The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping.

Remember Those Revell Airplane Models you were so proud of putting together when you were a kid? One look at Young Park's aluminum airplane models and you'll be glad you blew them up with cherry bombs and airplane glue.

Help for Psychotic Closets is at Hand via Barbra Horowitz's "closet therapy." She's located in, of course, the one place where people have more money and closets than time -- Los Angeles. Her method: "edit, purge, style." We're not sure what goes on during the "purge" phase.

We Could Go On, but we're becoming nervous about the whining and grinding noise that keeps coming out of our newly acquired : SimpleTech Hard Drive . Perhaps backing thing up in odd numbered years isn't really that good a plan. Then again, we bought this drive for BackUps. Not thinking we'd need to backup the backup.

On the other hand, a major hard-disk failure would be strangely liberating. It would give us more time to pursue our new sport of choice: "monkeyfishing " "n. to catch fish by charging water with an electric current then netting the stunned or panicked fish which rise to the surface." There's a very old and very bad joke associated with this, but we will spare you.

For now.

SIDELINES

SOUNDS OKAY TO US:

US concrete 'would cover Ohio'

"If all the concrete structures in America's 48 contiguous states were added up, they would cover a space almost as big as Ohio."

That's the hook that got the BBC to bite on the latest whine coming out of the environmental lobby. The fact that a lot of the concrete is widely dispersed and, in many situations, verticle just doesn't occur to them.

Of course, just so we get the "real" point, the caption writers at the BBC inform us that; "Excessive concrete cover is not good for the environment."

Roll over Andy Warhol: Can You Bead This?
Tip: growabrain

"PHASE 2": "The bulk of Western media attention has been focused on Iraq and Afghanistan and on curious side-shows like Abu Ghraib while Al Qaeda makes a bid for Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons and Saudi Arabia with its oil. The press cannot recognize these events as a long-held alternative Islamist strategy to power because it would undermine their principal contention that all terrorist events the world over are consequent to the Iraqi campaign; that Operation Iraqi Freedom represents the Year Zero, before which nothing happened and after which all terrorist history began."
-- The Belmont Club

REGARDING CLINTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, MY LIE: "But while Dan Rather, who interviewed Mr. Clinton for "60 Minutes," has already compared the book to the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, arguably the most richly satisfying autobiography by an American president, "My Life" has little of that classic's unsparing candor or historical perspective. Instead, it devolves into a hodgepodge of jottings: part policy primer, part 12-step confessional, part stump speech and part presidential archive, all, it seems, hurriedly written and even more hurriedly edited."
-- The New York Times The Pastiche of a Presidency,
Imitating a Life, in 957 Pages

POPULAR THOUGHTS YOU DON'T HEAR MUCH IN LAGUNA BEACH:
"A thoughtful mullah, on a daily basis, would call the faithful to prayer and make sure they thanked their god that neither I nor about 20 million of my fellow Americans has the job of President of the United States; that they all acknowledge that, for today at least, the only person standing between several middle-eastern states and immediate incineration is George W. Bush."

IT'S TIME TO PLAY: "NAME THAT CREED!"

"Christianity and Judaism aren't the only games in town, are they? There's another player that's been much in the news, that's had an enormous impact on world history and, if the reports from Europe are reliable, is bidding to return to hegemony there. Let's have a look at some of the principal tenets of that creed:

"It orders its adherents to spread the creed by force, and to compel all non-believers to submit to it as second-class citizens.

"It demands that any heresy, apostasy, or blasphemy against it be punished by death.
It demands total political power over the entire world, and explicitly denies the legitimacy of any political structure based on any principles other than its own.

"It prescribes a minutely elaborate code of behavior for all men, not just for its adherents, which is to be enforced by political means.

"It sanctifies any deed, however violent or deceitful, done to spread its hegemony over the world, and promises great glory to those who die doing such service.

"It particularly excoriates the Jews as its enemies, and prescribes their elimination from the face of the Earth.

"Quickly, now: Name the creed your Curmudgeon has in mind. One guess only...."

Click HERE to see if your guess was correct.

"You don't appreciate what happened in that prison until you see it."

WASHINGTON (Apocryphal Press) Sept. 11, 2005 - "Meeting deep below a still radioactive Capitol in a special bunker, the Joint Senate-House Armed Services and Nuclear Emergency Committee began grilling leaders of the CIA, FBI and Justice and Defense departments today about how a radiological dispersal device, or "dirty bomb," could have been detonated near the nation's capital...."
-- Paul Greenberg: Dispatch from the future

Paranoids Have Real Enemies Too: "From a coder's point of view, the whole Microsoft approach is terrifying: Try coding for windows outside of the .NET framework once Longhorn comes out! Watch those well-known security patches destroy months of work when one of the API's you were using is deemed unsecure.

"Or for those of us who are really paranoid, ask yourself whether Windows might not be used as a weapon : They have complete access to your OS! Is it unrealistic to suggest that Microsoft may have the ability to just crash most of the world's computers at the touch of a button?"
-- Gregory Dyke, commenting on Andrei Herasimchuk's Design by Fire: The real reason you should care about web standards

Hit & Run remarks on the rolling fashion disaster of the United States in: What, your "Who Farted?" t-shirt was at the cleaners?

"Like the Afghan mujahideen, however, Casual Wear was an anti-communist tool easier to build than to dismantle. And last week this one came back to us in a fashion catastrophe of stunning proportions."

So far, so right: "This campaign is like a World Series between the Cubs and the Red Sox."
Glenn Reynolds

"The bomber will always get through ... I think it is well also for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed."
-- British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, House of Commons, November 1932

-- HyperWar: Problems of Social Policy

Images from the Age of American Innocence #12,945

from: The 12 Dumbest Covers of American Comic Books

Charles, Vasa, Minnesota, 2002
chromogenic print
from: ALEC SOTH
Sleeping by the Mississippi
@ Stephen Wirtz Gallery

• Amazon Emergencies Made Easy
• Translating Tina Brown
• Gay Marriage is Fine, But This Is Too Much!
• Why New York is Hell with Good Restaurants: 9 More Reasons
• Soon Even Beheading the Innocent Will Seem Like A Normal News Cycle
• "One Atom to Beam Up"
• The Public Evisceration of Michael Moore
• Heavenly Bodies but Which Ones?
• Andrew Sullivan Mondays Freeze Dried
• Bee Seated
• Air America and the Lying Liars Who Ran It ... Into the Ground
• One Small Step for A Kid, One Giant Gingerbread Space Probe for Mankind
• What I Got for Father's Day
• Ronald McDonald's Obesity Spree Ends
• American Values According To Google
• The War of Two Religions
• Murdered for Being An American
• Osama's Webmaster
• I AM GOREGAR! HEAR ME ROAR.
• The Faultline of the World
• Inside the Insect Minds
• "To Where We Belong"
• Feedback's A Bitch
• Radiance of the Seas
• Linkblogging Lite