Soldier Ant 

Nice writeup on Kuro5hin on How To Make Sushi. Equally interesting are some of the comments (from more-seasoned Sushi vets, it would appear.)

Amidst a long, and interesting perspective on the War from Noam Chomsky, is the following:

In any legal system that you take seriously, coerced judgments are considered invalid, but in the international affairs conducted by the powerful, coerced judgments are fine  -   they are called diplomacy.

What is interesting about this case is that the coercion did not work. There were countries -- in fact, most of them -- who stubbornly maintained the position of the vast majority of their populations.

The most dramatic case is Turkey. Turkey is a vulnerable country, vulnerable to U.S. punishment and inducements. Nevertheless, the new government, I think to everyone's surprise, did maintain the position of about 90 per cent of its population. Turkey is bitterly condemned for that here, just as France and Germany are bitterly condemned because they took the position of the overwhelming majority of their populations. The countries that are praised are countries like Italy and Spain, whose leaders agreed to follow orders from Washington over the opposition of maybe 90 per cent of their populations.

That is another new step. I cannot think of another case where hatred and contempt for democracy have so openly been proclaimed, not just by the government, but also by liberal commentators and others. There is now a whole literature trying to explain why France, Germany, the so-called "old Europe", and Turkey and others are trying to undermine the United States. It is inconceivable to the pundits that they are doing so because they take democracy seriously and they think that when the overwhelming majority of a population has an opinion, a government ought to follow it.

See what the streets of San Francisco looked like in the film "Vertigo" and what they look like today. Go!

Currently Hearing is a WinAmp plugin that publishes current track information to your web site.

(Link found on Dreaming Witch.)

I've never been a customer, but I do so love a little Google-character-assasination:

According to someone Verizon is the worst company ever.

(I myself think it just might be Wells Fargo.)

A colleague shared this site with me today, and it looks fascinating. Mark Ryden is a Pasadena artist whose work is evocative, amusing, and mildly disturbing. Be sure to click on his Bunnies & Bees series.

Matt Haughey has stumbled on a nice little low-effort hack to get your current track information out of WinAmp and published to your MT blog.

How Internet Cookies Work is thorough and concise. It's a good read if you're a privacy-conscious web-surfer, worried about "evil cookies". (It also makes a nice refresher course if you work in the Web industry - there're a couple of points in there that I've either forgotten about or maybe never really understood in the first place..)

Blogshares finally found Soldier Ant. Please do me a solid, and invest a coupl'a sawbucks in the humble anthill...

What'ya suppose these guys are looking at? Looks like it's time for Uncle Jesse to drop that hairbrush and start thwackin' some perverts, if you ask me.

Ancient Atomic Warfare?

Religious texts and geological evidence suggest that several parts of the world have experienced destructive atomic blasts in ages past.

US forces have discovered Saddam's 'love shack':

The home's 1960s look -- parodied in the series of "Austin Powers" spy spoofs -- inspired a round of imitations from soldiers slogging door to door.

"Yeah, baaabeee," said Carter, doing his best imitation of actor Mike Myers' character.

"Shagadelic," another soldier shouted.

Indeed, the carpet was navy blue shag.

This one is for Rob Duffy:

Phil Greenspun points out that Idi Amin is still alive (and living in Mecca.) And Jorn Barger points out that Tarzan's chimp Cheeta is too! (He's an ornery 71-years old...)

Nice random collection of images found for the search term “full-on”

NEW: A couple more interesting results:
One, two, three
Disastrous results
Paul is dead
Holiday depression
"as if"

Hmm, today my Ant Tracks script has been screwed up (posting escaped HTML text instead of raw HTML.) I think it's only happened since I upgraded to Mac OS 10.2.5, which makes me think that they've made some improvements to the Webcore framework (previously, on the advice of Adriaan Tijsseling, I had been escaping all left angle-brackets (<) to get around some weirdness with that framework.

Looks like it might be time to go and back out that hack and see if the situation improves...

Here's a fun little gallery of Playmobil Tarot cards. Dig that Hierophant!

Ha! This kid is taking his Easter treats whereever he can find 'em.

(Link sent by Charlie Tokyo.)

The often interesting film columnist Jeffrey Wells comments on The Real Cancun, the new "reality movie" from the makers of MTV's real world:

You have to be some kind of ingrown-toenail type to really love Cancun (okay, it's tolerable if you get drunk enough and stay that way), and you have to be some kind of deconstructionist to make a film like THE REAL CANCUN or, for that matter, pay to see it. But I want to see it anyway for the tail, and in so doing I suppose I'll be contributing in my own small way to the ruination of a once-great art form, so fuck me and pass the salt shaker, bro.

Will film industry programming begin to mirror the "reality programming" trends of TV as a cheap way to grab the young audience?

I'm just glad they're not calling it a documentary.

Finally! The Jerry Springer Rules explains the intricacies and subtle innuendo of the show, in terms even Springer-neophytes can comprehend. Many's the time I've wanted to watch Jerry Springer, but like 3d-season Buffy or mid-season 24, I've been intimidated and scared to just jump in midstream with no background or history. Thank you, Bitch Panic.

A couple weeks back, I was all hyped on BlogShares, but for whatever reason, Soldier Ant was listed, but not available for trade. (Yes, I'm too lazy to understand how the real market works, let alone the fake blog market.)

Anyway, Soldier Ant shares are now truly available for trading. So please do go drop some scratch on me. I may or may not deserve it, but I am begging you.

WTF?! How come I can do a Google search for “Sports Frog” (with the quotes, even!) and get a loooong listing of blogs and sites that point to The Sports Frog. (Which Rob Duffy introduced to the anthill a couple of months back.) But nowhere do I get an actual result pointing to The Sports Frog itself!

I'm not gonna claim foul-play, mind you. A lot of people seem to enjoy mistrusting Google's intentions these days. But, seriously, have you heard that Sergey Brin's father was once the Russian Secret Consulate to the Bavarian Illuminati? Yeah, I didn't hear that either, but dig this couplet from a poem he authored for Sergey:

You work hard to squeeze a thesis
From the world wide web of feces.

Now, I cry foul.

Anyway, can anyone explain to me the hiccup in Google's algorithms that might've blacklisted that poor frog? Surely someone's authored a search concept map that could explain this all...

This is an amazing Sketchbook from Kevin Cornell, who appears to be a UK-based Illustrator and Designer. I love the tasteful touches in the Flash interface, and the sketches themselves are fantastic.

I think I'm maturing, because I can now look at something this well-realized, and not think immediately of my own shortcomings.

(Link from Charlie Tokyo.)

After running my alpha-code Ant Tracks script for several weeks now, I'm convinced it's robust enough to become a regular feature on Soldier Ant. So you'll notice a 'Now Spinning on iTunes' feature in the right-rail of the page. If you see something that interests you, make with the clicky.

Look at this beautiful book:

What is inside this beautiful book?

The first comprehensive book of printed works, marking the first solo exhibition at La Base gallery in Paris by Shepard Fairey. The 63-page harcover book is printed in full color, with over 100 images chronicling screenprinted posters from 1993 to 2003. Published by La Base, with forward written by Space Invader. Only 500 available, 100 signed.

Buy beautiful book.

Poe's Pit & the Pendulum:

And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, there came thronging upon my recollection a thousand vague rumours of the horrors of Toledo. Of the dungeons there had been strange things narrated -- fables I had always deemed them -- but yet strange, and too ghastly to repeat, save in a whisper.

Apple's iTunes Music Store looks amazing. I missed the big announcements today, but I finally got 10 minutes to download iTunes 4 and play with it tonight, and -- already -- the user experience has me smiling. And the selection is nothing to scoff at.

There was plenty of stuff I didn't find (The Walkmen; The Silos; and can someone explain to me how on Earth a search for "sloan" could yield Tommy Dorsey, Ann-Margret and 'Blessid Union of Souls'? Try it. Ugh.)

But there was also a hell of a lot that I did find that surprised me. All of Wilco's back-catalog. Alot of rap and hip-hop (with conveniently marked 'Clean' and 'Explicit' versions.) Some nice 'exclusives' (radio-stop takes from U2, f'r'instance.)

And yes, I realize that these anecdotal touchpoints are earning me no indie-street cred.

On a side note -- do a search for Rhett Miller. Then tell me he doesn't look like Kim Bauer's himbo-hunk karate-choppin' legless boyfriend from 24*.

Anyway, this is a fantastic service. I can't vouch for the business model, and only time and the market will tell if it'll succeed, but I can see myself buying music here. Much music.

Here're some areas where I think Apple stands to make a real niche killing, and where I personally hope they grow to next:

• Out-of-print titles: if someone could show me Bash & Pop's first one for ~$4, available now (with no flaky Amazon zShops sellers to deal with) the sale would be made. No questions asked. And that's not even a rare title. The majors have 40+ years worth of music, most of it gathering dust. It is not my original idea, nor is it a novel one, to suggest making this stuff available. When the fuck is someone finally gonna do it?
• Songs from commercials: They'll do this, undoubtedly. CDNow used to program a page where you could find out which band plays what song in 'that commercial -- you know. the one with the dancing old guy in a diaper.' This need meshes perfectly with the 99¢ price-range. And people love to discover new music this way. Show me who sings that Saturn song, play me a thirty-second sample to prove it, and - yeah - I'll give you a buck.
• Live Tracks, the morning after: Again, not an original idea. Pearl Jam's doing it, Phish did it, and Paul Westerberg should do it. So should a lot of artists. There are a lot of completists out there who will want it all. The rest of us would be content to have last night's show, the one we were at, as a momento.

I'm guessing there'll be a lot of commentary and speculation about this service in the coming days. From a quick initial pass, I can understand why.

* Here's that guy's site and, dude, if you yourself are personally responsible for that Flash intro and scrunched navigation, you deserve to lose that leg. Oh yeah - and that domain name. Hand over your hair, too. Yes. You must.

In-N-Out serve food of biblical proportions. I miss In-N-Out.