If "Arafat is Bin Laden", does that make Sharon Saddam? Israel's obstruction of the UN team set to investigate the attack on Jenin has given support to the Iraqi dictator, who has used the same tactics with weapons inspectors for years. Link: Sharon gives succour to Saddam (Guardian UK)

The author of Ad-Aware, a program that removes sneaky software, explains what happened when his own program was zapped by the enemy. Link: Spyware vs. anti-spyware (Salon)

Seven months after terrorism trumped privacy as a Congressional concern, bipartisan alliances in both houses are seeking to rekindle the issue. Link :Both Parties Try to Revive Privacy Issue in Congress (NYTimes, free reg. req.) (thanks to L for the link)

How the "non-sensitive" clause in Hollings' bill will enable parasites. Link: A law to protect spyware (Salon)

Do we think that the LPGA is going too far in denying the lesbian connection??? Really!! Yahoo! Sports: Golf -

NOW With Bill Moyers had a good bit about the decline of commercial radio and the role of voice tracking and Clear Channel. Link: Now with Bill Moyers

Virtual Radio / Clear Channel Transcript (from Moyers)

NPR's All Things Considerd (radio report on same story)

Future of Music Coalition has a VERY deeply researched article about CARP and the prospects for webcasting of music CARP Fact Sheet

Good Gourevich profile of Jean-Marie Le Pen from 1997 New Yorker. Link: The New Yorker: From the Archives (thanks to L for the link)

Well, it was worth a try. Guess they'll have to find another way to get to him. Email? Fax? Spanish Judge Can't Quiz Kissinger

From one of our correspondents:
can anyone top this? who are the two most powerful people in america?
1) dog show judge
2) the guy at the municipal dump who checks to see if you have properly "sorted"

April 23 2002 - 8:50 AM Eastern Time USA - Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos are in first place in their respective divisions. Two days after last years' great World Series, baseball commisioner Bud Selig announced that the owners were going to eliminate two teams from the ranks of the major leagues. The two teams most likely to go? Yup, Twins and Expos.

Remarkable, touching account of life under siege by distinguished Palestinian poet Zakaria Mohammed. Link: Lives In Ruins (Guardian UK)

The EFF has an interesting blog called "Consensus at Lawyerpoint?". Being a true account of the undertakings of the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (The Broadcast Protection Discussion Group is an obscure group of Hollywood studios and technology companies that are negotiating a "consensus" for any gadget or code that can touch the studios' product. Once they're done, they want to go to Washington and ask Congress and/or the FCC to give their "standard" the force of law.)

Awful legacies of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, Part 235: In the Name of Homeland Security, Telecom Firms Are Deluged With Subpoenas (Newhaouse)

Can it be as simple as "Women fuck up, men fuck anything" Link:Real Men Don’t Get Intimidated—Or Why Maureen Dowd Was Wrong (thanks to L for the link)

Using the "Back" button in IE is dangerous" (Security Focus.com)

Mozilla 1.0 imminent. I am using 0.9.9 as my second, non-proxy, browser and it is really good. Now, what if AOL decided to carpet bomb us with discs for AOL 8.0 using Mozilla, not IE as the basis for the browser? Mozilla poised for revival (CNET.com)

Loooong, interesting scholarly piece on using a "real" Socratic method approach to Cultural Studies. I am not claiming that if Socrates were alive today, he would be writing a weekly column for TV Guide . But I do believe that he would be interrogating filmmakers and TV scriptwriters in the marketplace of Hollywood, just as he once did the poets and other artisans in the marketplace of Athens. Socrates never knew where philosophy might take him, but he always knew where to begin. The Art in the Popular (Wilson Quartely Summer 2001) (Thanks to L for the link)

Combine this with the awful Hollings Bill and you've got a formula for collapsing the US leadership in cutting-edge tech. Fears of a Security Brain Drain (Security Focus)

Who writes this stuff??? Is this how MBAs are taught to write at those expensive schools? Memo To All Maxtor Employees (from F**ked Company)

Mirror of an amazing lego project:
1) Overhead of the Church
2) The Altar
3) Lego Priest giving a sermon
4) Lego Organ Pipes
5) Her cat, Precious, inside the church (you'd think laying on legos would be uncomfortable!)

134 music acts, 134 different contract riders. See which of your favourites insits on a wide variety of sex toys in the dressing room. The Smoking Guns' "Backstage Pass" (stuffed olives need not apply)

Rolling Stone has deigned to tell us : 50 Coolest Records The frigtening thing is that i own 46 of them. Arrrgh! Anyone have the condensed list without the commerce? I'll post it in poopland.

It's every parent's nightmare - discovering your offspring is a secret heavy metal addict. Dido fan Jim White on how his teenage son tried to turn him on to the aural delights of thrash/death
> Never mind the Sex Pistols, here's the bollocks... (Guardian UK)

Sharp, deep look at race on the net. The color-blind Web: a techno-utopia, or a fantasy to assuage liberal guilt? Link: Cyberspace and Race - - MIT Tech Review (thanks to L for the link)

from the NY Daily News: (thanks to L for the link)

You can still be a good American and wish baseball could leave "God Bless America" out of the seventh inning stretch now.
There were some amazing moments because of that song last September, and last October, and even last November. There were nights at the ballpark none of us will ever forget, especially that first night back for the Mets at Shea, when Diana
Ross sang "God Bless America" and Mike Piazza hit that home run into the night.
"That was the night when you didn't know whether to feel happy or sad or what," Bobby Valentine said the other day. "Just that you were supposed to feel something."
But not every day at the ballpark has to be Memorial Day now.
It was all right to remember 9/11 on Opening Day, if teams chose to do that, and we will do that again on the first anniversary.
The rest of the time, baseball should just move on.

What exactly is the deal with "Gob Bless America" at baseball games this new season? Hell, they even show it on TV and then cut to commercial just as the crowd is about to launch into the real baseball song, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"

Seems reasonable to me: Digital Consumers' Bill of Rights

Interesting Salon chat with Harry Shearer The comic genius of "This Is Spinal Tap" fame talks about corporate corruption, the art of the American apology and his new film, "Teddy Bears' Picnic." Link: Harry Searer

EPIC takes the government to court for details of a secret national I.D. plan. Link:Privacy Advocates Sue Homeland Security Office (Security Focus April 2)

Michael Moore has the NYT bestseller with "Stupid White Men", here is the latest harrowing tale from: Mike's Book Tour Diary (April 1, 2002, no joke) - How come Terri Gross won't interview him?

Remarkable road trip. A picture every mile coast-to-coast. Fascinating images ans interesting tech stuff too. (Warning! Flash in use) Taken On The Road: American Mile Markers (low bandwith movie available)

One of the smaller, less reported, stories from the Mide East mess this week. for some reason, this touched me more than others. Sniper Kills Bethlehem Church Bell-Ringer (Reuter April 4)

I wonder if the Sony the record label tested the corrupted CD on a product made by Sony the computer maker, or Sony the car stereo maker, or Sony the boom-box maker Dion's new CD crashing party for some users

Two bits on RMS and "free software". Salon book review of bio: Code free or die and a brief, to the point, BBC interview with Stallman himself: Why Software Should Be Free

Monday's best tech story: The technology behind Google's great results

It's opening day. Here's one for our readers in Boston (thanks to L for the link)