THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:
YOUR FRIDAY TIMEWASTERS: Games made by TONYPA. Pictured above is Starrunner.
RETURN OF THE 80's? It seems like bands are starting to mine another decade for inspiration. Waltham, which oddly has an album on Rykodisc, is getting compared to Rick Springfield (and with good reason, I might add). You can stream a few from the band's MySpace page and download a couple from the band's site. Group Sounds is a bit more alternative and danceable, but undeniably drawing from the 80's. If Waltham wouldn't sound out of place on the soundtrack to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Group Sounds would fit on the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie. But you can hear for yourself here.
JEFF TWEEDY knows how good he has it with Wilco: “We have the luxury of getting together and making (stuff) up, that's our job.”
BILLY BRAGG has pushed his deluxe reissues and box set into 2006, where they will compete with the debut album from Steven Seagal. No, really.
BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB is streaming a new tune from the upcoming album on their MySpace page.
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE: At Hello, Newman, Newman argues that BSS could be the new Grateful Dead, though the two sound nothing like each other.
BAD ALBUM COVERS: The Boston Globe is hosting a gallery of the gauche.
THE INTONATION FEST, PART 3 is on the Pitchfork.
THE DANDY WARHOLS: Scenestars has a download from the new album, which I note not because I want to kill music, but because the new album will apparently begin with narration by Bill Kurtis; best known from A&E television shows, he anchored the CBS local news in Chicago when I was a kid.
WHAT IS “INDIE ROCK?” At Coolfer, Glenn cracks the code.
R. KELLY: At Slate, Hua Hsu thinks that sex tapes leaked to the Chicago Sun-Times scandalized Kelly the man, but had a liberating effect on Kelly the performer. And while the girl in the alleged R. Kelly sex video was only 14 years old when it was made, according to the testimony of the girl's best friend, the criminal case against Kelly may yet get tossed out of court.
METALLICA will be the subject of an upcoming issue of the journal Essays In Philosophy. Further comment at Crooked Timber.
SUFJAN STEVENS, having completed Michigan and Illinois, hints at how he might actually finish his ambitious 50 state project: franchising.
“PEOPLE I DON'T KNOW ARE TRYING TO KILL ME:” You've seen the London bombings on television, get ready to download the single next week.
LONDON ATTACKED AGAIN: A massive man hunt is on for the four would-be suicide bombers. NBC News reported that British authorities told their U.S. counterparts that the backpacks used in Thursday's planned attacks and the explosives found in the backpacks are identical to those used in the July 7 attacks. There are also fingerprints on the backpacks. Outside experts are puzzled as to the seeming failure of the four bombs. Police last night told Tony Blair that they need sweeping new powers to counter the terrorist threat, including the right to detain a suspect for up to three months without charge instead of the current 14 days. Also, special intelligence units are being planned across Britain to monitor Muslim communities. UPDATE: Today armed police killed a man suspected of trying to attack an Underground train in the station (Note: Bobbies are usually unarmed). As I did yesterday, I recommend The Counter-terrorism blog for further updates.
IRAQ: Michael Yon has another incredible article online (with plenty of pictures) that starts with an explanation of how U.S. troops protect bases from mortar and rocket attack and concludes with undercover raids that bag four kidnappers and over a ton of explosives. Also, next year, the U.S. may deploy ray guns for riot control.
GITMO: This week, the Pentagon named Marine Corps Lt. Col. Dwight Sullivan, a reservist who worked for the American Civil Liberties Union's Maryland branch for six years, as the new chief defense lawyer for the military tribunal process at Camp X-Ray.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Press junketeers say Cruise has only two ways of expressing himself and find it disturbing. Scientologists are getting hinky over Glamour magazine's coverage of Cruise and Scientology generally.
PAM ANDERSON AND TOMMY LEE both deny that they are re-marrying.
JUDE LAW'S ex-wife publicly offered sympathy to Sienna Miller over Law's fling with the nanny: “I didn't see this one coming — it was a shock to everyone.” The cynic in me thought that Sadie Frost could have hired a hot nanny to muck things up… but then I saw the nanny.
BRADGELINA UPDATE: A pediatrics expert says Jolie saved her adopted daughter from almost certain death of salmonella, dehydration and malnutrition in an Ethiopian orphanage. Think someone was upset by those stories about the grandmother who wanted to care for the girl?
ROMAN POLANSKI SUES LEWIS LAPHAM, which is sheer entertainment, as I wish both sides could lose. UPDATE: Polanski wins, but not much.
JESSICA ALBA AND A MONKEY. A female monkey. French kissing. No kidding. Alba also mentions Natalie Portman, but Alba must not have seen Closer.
IRAQ II: The Washington Post gets the improving troop morale story in the way that the The New York Times didn't. Indeed, the WaPo story makes another interesting point: “The survey also reported that when soldiers were asked about their own morale — as distinct from their unit's morale — there was marked improvement from 2003 to 2004: 52 percent described their morale as low or very low in the first survey, and that number dropped to 36 percent in 2004.” Those familiar with political polling have probably seen a similar pattern with regard to the economy — people will say they are doing well, but think that their neighbor is not.
RENOVATE MY TV SHOW: Fox Broadcasting’s Renovate My Family promised the Rosier family a new and improved home designed to accommodate their recently paralyzed son, Steven; instead, they allegedly got a shoddy wreck of a house that latest estimates say will cost 350,000 bucks to fix.
I'M NOT A GUMMY BEAR FAN, but this still made me laugh.
WEB SURFING AT WORK: arstechnica pokes some holes in the recent study claiming that internet misuse in the workplace costs American corporations more than 178 billion dollars annually in lost productivity.
OAK PARK, ILLINOIS made real estate mogul Barbara Cochran's list of the Top 5 Sexiest Suburbs in America (as seen on The View, no less). The write-up for the city does not specifically mention that it is currently home to our own Sylvia Hauser, but I think the “vibe of total and utter confidence” is a reference for those in the know.
THE SUPREME COURT: The New York Times has a lengthy profile of nominee John G. Roberts. Prof. Ann Althouse and Wonkette think there was a subliminal message in it. NTTAWWT.
THE PLAME GAME: While waiting to see whether U.S. Atorney Patrick Fitzgerald comes up with anything in his investigation of how CIA analyst Valerie Plame turned up in a column by Robert Novak, Gawker has run a poll pitting Novak against Angelina Jolie.
IRAQ III: The NYT and the WaPo again ran “glass half full or empty” stories Thursday. The NYT piece is headlined “Iraqis Not Ready to Fight Rebels on Their Own, U.S. Says.” (D-uh; if the Iraqis were ready, the U.S. would already be building down our troop level.) The NYT reports that only 3 of the 107 military and paramilitary battalions are able to plan, execute and sustain independent counterinsurgency operations. About one-third of the Iraqi batallions is fully capable of operating against the insurgency, with U.S. support, usually supplies, communications and intelligence. However, half of the police units and two-thirds of the army battalions are only “partially capable” of carrying out missions with American help; the remainder are still forming. What the WaPo reports –and the NYT omits — is the improvement from last year, when whole battalions collapsed and absenteeism was regularly in double digits. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's blog from Iraq has members of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team giving good marks to the Iraqi Army’s 4th Brigade: “Our military units are starting to beg to have the Iraqis participate in their operations,” one said. Attacks on recruiting stations are not deterring Iraqis from joining the fight. Both the NYT and WaPo skip the parts of the report noting that the average number of weekly insurgent attacks is dcereasing (though the insurgents' focus on civilians may increase casualties) and that the attacks are largely concentrated in four provinces. Moreover, attacks on infrastructure are decreasing, which should help boost oil and electricity production going forward.
MISS UNIVERSE was forced to take off her official sash at a local festival when Toronto authorities invoked a law against sexual stereotyping.
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: Is the book a commentary on the War on Terrorism, or is the war a way to define Harry? Also, it appears that the book's readers may need grief counseling.
COMIC-CON: Beneath the geeky exterior, there be pirates! Arrrgh!
THE WAR on TERRORISM: There seems to be a trend toward mass protests against terrorism, from Pakistan to an interfaith effort in Germany. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer had much to say about the war in an interview with Der Spiegel — including a comparison of jihadist terrorism to freeware — but the most important may have been this: “We've got to see Jihadist terrorism for what it is: A nihilist totalitarian ideology which must be fought. For this we need young Muslims.” Fischer also calls the notion that Germany is safe from attack because it did not join in the invasion of Iraq “nonsense.”
NANOTECH: Scientists at The University of Manchester have discovered a new class of materials which are one atom thick and exhibit properties which scientists had never thought possible. Depending on circumstances they can be ultra-strong, highly-insulating or highly-conductive.
INHERIT THE WIND: The Smithsonian's website has posted recently discovered photos of the Scopes “monkey trial.”
ELEPHANTS are being abducted by loggers and put to work dragging trees from the forest in Myanmar.
GIANT MUTANT TROUT are being bred by the USDA's National Center for Cool and Cold Water Aquaculture in Kearneysville, WV.
BEARS prefer to vacation in New Mexico.
PET HOARDING: Animal control officers seized 137 dachshunds from a couple's home in New Hanover County, N.C., along with 14 cats and two birds. What would Cruella de Ville say?