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I swear to god cannibalism would widely accepted in America if a) someone started serving deep fried human fingers and b) you could get a pill to make you not feel bad for eating human flesh.

The ProJo.com Digital Bulletin, a through-the-day update to the print content available online, is a mixed blessing. It gives you a good look at news as it happens, rather than waiting for the next day's edition. Sometimes, though, the posted information is incomplete and yet extremely intriguing, as is the case today (emphasis mine): Crazy.

So I'm sucking up to my boss President Bush in my little briefing, telling him how we need not apologize for deposing an evil dictator. Then I tell him how Qaddafi's (also a nasty dictator) decision to give up WMD production is a victory for our foreign policy. This leads me to wonder whether we would have left Saddam, a brutal dictator who slaughtered his own people, and so on, in power had he somehow been able to credibly show that he had disarmed and was not seeking WMDs. If so, how can we use "Saddam's a bad guy" as justification for invading Iraq? If not, then why did we go through all the trouble of saying "he's on his last chance to disarm" charade in the buildup to the war, since it was obvious we were going to piss off the world community anyway? And we wonder why most Arabs hate us. We'll either look the other way for a weaponless repressor or bomb the shit out a neighbor they see as trying to defend itself from an antagonistic superpower. This made my head hurt, so I just ignored the cognitive dissonance and went on to talk about Israel's giant wall. This seems to me what most non-idealogues in the Bush Administration go through, and I have sympathy for these guys. Or rather, I would, if they weren't so obviously putting us in more danger.

Hey all you political/war junkies, how would you like to serve your country and get me a good grade at the same time? Then prepare a 3-4 page essay on this topic: (click me, it was too long to type) I'm having trouble with it because there's quite a few presuppositions in there that I've spent months complaining about. I'm not in any frame of mind to improve upon the doctrine of pre-emption that got us into this mess. And I'm not worried at all that the triumph of democracy over an exploitative government in Spain is "raising the specter of 1930's style appeasement." I already sold out to my Cold War vet professor by writing on an exam that Qaddafi's recent actions were the result of Bush's "threat of force made credible by the liberation of Iraq." When I sat down and started writing, here's came out: Can I conscientiously object to this assignment...?

Yesterday in Philadelphia (home of the Phillies and all sorts of phunky "ph" spellings) Veterans Stadium, one of the cookie cutter baseball stadia so popular in the 70's, bit the dust. Or rather, created a giant cloud of dust as it was brought down with 3,000 pounds of explosives. Last year was the final season to catch a game at the Vet, and luckily Em and I, on our continuing quest to see a game at every major league park, got the chance to drive down to Philadelphia to see the Red Sox play there. Having that perspective, the first thing that comes to mind upon seeing yesterday's implosion is "good riddance." One thing I've realized in travelling to other major league parks is just how good we have it in New England. Most people will readily admit that Fenway is one of the top places to see baseball, but you just can't appreciate how much better it is than everywhere else. The new parks are very nice, but can't compare with the palpable sense of history in Boston. And the 1970's fields, of which we've been to two, have no redeeming qualities whatsoever when compared to our lyric little bandbox. The Phillies will open their new park next month, and it should be a real treat for Philly fans. It won't be Fenway, but then, nothing ever will. Em and I will of course make another trip down, but this time there's no rush. Anyway, here's a couple pics from our trip last June, you can see what Philidelphians won't be missing anymore.

Another victory in eradicating evil from the world: Israel assassinates Hamas leader And a little tidbit to justify a bad joke, the word assassin comes from an Islamic sect in the 11th - 13th centuries that went to great lengths to kill political and religious leaders who they believed broke the laws of Islam. Our word assassination didn't even arrive at it's current meaning until rather recently, though.

On the heels of our comments about ASF last week, the Providence Journal has an altogether horrible article on the man himself. I have no real love for ASF, but he does good work and has inspired people I know, so I'm not sure why the ProJo put a hit piece out on him. Go read it. The big revelation, apparently, is that ASF made his fortune parting fools with their money via selling "collectible" stamp sets and other miscellaneous junk for lots of money. While I wouldn't go into this line of work, I gotta say I'm a lot more concerned about the rich guys who don't give a damn about other people and are a lot less scrupulous than stamp hucksters. More than anything, writer Jennifer Levitz seemed to be oozing with contempt for ASF. She sought out quotes from people on the internet who some would consider the victims of Feinstein's "scams," she continuously (and contemptuously?) wrote phoenetic spellings into quotes to highlight ASF's thick RI accent, and made special efforts to point out purported egotism. Listen, Jennifer, I'm sure you probably think you're adding "color" to your quotes, but a person's pronunciation of a word doesn't change its spelling (I've yet to see a reporter quote the President on nukuler weapons, after all). And try as you might, you probably won't convince me that a guy so devoted to children and idealism is just looking for attention for himself. Rich guys with big egos run for public office, not establish charitable foundations. Plus, didn't they teach you in J-school not to make yourself part of the story? Now, like I mentioned last week, I like to have fun at ASF's expense, but I can't stand to see a practically defamatory news article in a VERY prominent spot on the front page of the Sunday Paper. Come on. I like it better when the Journal goes out to knock corrupt legislators down a peg.

I was fishing for comments the other day at Aces Full of Links (and it worked!). But I ended up getting James to think about commenting on these types of websites in general, and he's done all the heavy lifting of thinking about this, so I'm just going to link to it and make my own observations. I really do like getting comments. And I really appreciate it when you guys have something to say, and fostering discussions is probably the best part off doing this site. Some things:

as James points out, the design of this site is very content-centric. Unlike almost all other blogs, I don't have a links section down the side (though I used to, remember that?) and it's hard to add other content like "recent comments" (see the sidebar here for what that means) with my current design (which I am quite fond of). A while back I tried a little experiment with adding stuff to the right of the main column, using CSS to make it very inconspicuous, but due to Internet Explorer being shit on CSS standards, it didn't work. Would you guys want to see some sort of fiddling with the design to add another column of stuff?

I refuse to be a link whore, someone who goes out and tells other bloggers "I'll link you if you link me" and posts links to my site everywhere. I am pretty lucky that some people link to me in their blog rolls even though I don't reciprocate. I'd like as many people as possible to read this site, but I have no interest in actively seeking out new readership. So I adjust my expectations accordingly.

As for saying something inflammatory to get people talking, well all you old skoolers should remember what happened with Lames and Jason, those were good times for comments. Unfortunately that's just not really my disposition.

What I've come to realize is that the lack of comments here specifically is due to one or two things. Most people are only mildly interested (if at all) in the stuff I talk about. My friends aren't really politics junkies (though Jason seemed to think that we were all a leftist cabal of groupthinkers) and whats more insomuch as they are interested, we're all generally on the same page. "Right on!" isn't really worth the effort of leaving a comment. Then there's my obsession with urban planning, which I'm not sure anyone besides Em and I (and newly arrived Garris!) have an interest in.

And the other reason people are always telling me keeps them from commenting is self consciousness. Amazingly, at least 5 different people from different groups of friends have all said they don't want to leave comments because they think everyone else will over-analyze their comment or think they are stupid. I have no idea how to deal with this, because I would never ridicule an earnest commenter, and I don't think any of the other regular commentors would either. Please, don't hesitate to comment!

So that's about it. Any comments on comments?

There's a bunch of little things that don't warrant their own post, so we like to lump them together in a catch-all entry. Enjoy! I finally got DSL! However, the wireless part of my wireless router seems to have gone on vacation. That severly screws up my plans to sit outside on my porch listening to Red Sox games next month. I did run a long ethernet cable through my bedroom wall into the living room, though, so that extends my range somewhat. I failed my chemistry lab midterm quite spectacularly. It was awful. I have to heartily recommend "Have You Fed the Fish" by Badly Drawn Boy. I have no idea how it got there, but it was in my iTunes library and it's really good. Speaking of iTunes, there's no good reason that you shouldn't be using it for your digital music collection. Seriously, it rocks. For Mac and Windows Inspired by Curious Frog, I whipped up a border for images on this page in CSS. What do you think? I'm thinking of starting a new weblog (in addition to this one) focusing only on Providence/RI urban design and its attendent issues (transportation, planning, architecture, development, reuse, etc.). I'm having a little trouble getting started, first and foremost I can't come up with a decent name for the blog. Plus there's a whole bunch of stuff to talk about right now, and it's overwhelming. You'd think I'd have something to say about the one year anniversary of going into Iraq. I don't really. Despite growing a little more hawkish about military intervention in the Middle East in general, I feel exactly the same about the Iraq issue. The whole thing was a sham, and, I think, will be viewed by history as a criminally negligent detour away from the fight against al Qaeda. Speaking of al Qaeda, I've been doing a lot of reading about terrorism and Islam and Middle Eastern stuff lately, and I wish everyone could just decide on Americanized spellings of all these translated-from-the-arabic words they use. Qaeda or Qaida? Usama or Osama? Husayn or Hussein? There's, like, 10 different spellings for that guy running Libya. Pick one, dammit! Anyone catch the new show Wonderfalls on Fox? I love it. I'd tell you what it's about, but the description makes it sound stupid, but it's really great. And since it's weird and I really like it, there's absolutely no chance there will be more than six episodes. Check your local listings. Had enough yet? Me too. Time for a beer.

It's a beautiful day in New Orleans. Since it's a nice lazy Saturday and I don't have anything to do, I figured I'd take a book outside and read for a while, or maybe go for a walk. I also could really go for an iced coffee. In the interest of combining these things into one, I've decided to do something I'm pretty sure no one does: walk to a suburban Starbucks. While I have a nice porch on the front of my house, it faces a fairly major road on which people routinely drive 50mph, and where white kids with $6,000 stereos blast rap at anyone not barricaded inside with the AC on high. So I can't sit out there and concentrate on my book. Plus there's no coffee here. So I could drive to a coffee shop, but they're all pretty far away except for a Starbucks in a strip mall on the major commercial strip in Metairie (NO's suburbs), about a mile and a half away. That wouldn't really satisfy my desire to take a walk, though. And there's no greenspaces within walking distance that are quiet enough to sit in. So, I've decided to make a foray into the belly of the pedestrian unfriendly beast and walk to Starbucks. It'll be scary at times, yes, but I think if I run very fast I can make it across the 7 lanes of traffic after the third person in an obnoxious Mustang runs the red light and before the idiots in their Hondas take off from the stop line a half second before the light turns green. If I survive, I may have tales of the wonderous things I'll see venturing where few pedestrians have dared. And before anyone gives me crap about going to Starbucks, for all their faults that company has done a damn good job of creating a comfortable space to be in, something we don't see enough of in our homogenous utilitarian cartoon surroundings.

I was (digitally) sifting through a couple hundred pictures I've taken in Providence and came across this one, which I thought was pretty interesting: These benches are facing the Woonasquatucket River across the street from the Foundry and just upriver from the Mall/Rt. 95. You'd never know there was a river there, as you can see the banks are pretty overgrown. Do you think anyone ever sits there?! I'm going to assume that these benches are early investments in what will hopefully become a beautiful, thriving area. It wasn't so long ago that this spot was among a wasteland of decaying buildings and empty lots situated between train tracks and empty mill buildings, with a trash strewn river running through it. Today there are new roads and sidewalks (and a "bike path," or more specifically striping which mall exiting maniacs speeding down the road aren't supposed to cross...) A new upscale apartment complex went up, with plans to refurbish other underutilized buildings are on the drawing board. Eventually the river will be better landscaped as development upriver restores the Woonasquatucket the jewel it is. There's good times ahead, and you've got a perfect place to sit and watch.

I've been watching a practically empty tank for over a month now. A month without fish does great things to a tank - its wonderfully clean and very healthy. Lots of little organisms have been growing and keeping the ecosystem in good shape. However, most of these organisms are extremely tiny or microscopic, and not very entertaining. Yesterday, I finally brought home 3 macro-organisms (fish)! Those are my 2 new tank-raised ocellaris clownfish. I know it seems like we're obsessed with clownfish, but they're so comical (haha! clowns). They're nice and small for my little tank, but they swim a lot and are extremely friendly. I also got a little yellow goby. Here he is acclimating to my tank. And this is where he likes to hang out. Orange-faced clown & the stackable hermits(band name): If that wasn't enough excitement for one FSF, I've got great news from the tank in Cranston too. Maroon clown, blue tang, & the new and improved feather duster are all doing great!