The Lads Go For Three In A Row


Newcastle host Reading at 15:00 local time (10:00 New York time) on Saturday. Come to Nevada Smiths to catch the action live on the big screen. It promises to be electric, as Newcastle's home fans will be expecting a third straight win. The Toon will be rocking.

Or if you want to see an even bigger match this weekend, stop by at 07:45 to see Arsenal host Liverpool at Emirates Stadium. I predict a draw in that match.

Newcastle should beat Reading 1-0 or 2-0. I want a clean sheet (shutout)!

Ho'way the lads!

The Mess They Got Themselves Into


We have come to a bizarre twist in the ongoing chaos in Iraq. We now have Shiite militias - the al-Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade - waging war against Iraq's Shiite-dominated government. It is all going to hell, and the handbasket has increased speed yet again.

But I want to take a moment to remind kind readers of how this latest development is directly related to the UK forces in Iraq. Remember them?

Where were most of the UK soldiers stationed? Basra. Iraq's second-largest city. Where has most of the recent Shia-on-Shia violence taken place? Basra. How did a city go from a relatively stable zone to the epicenter of a renewed civil war in less than a year? Ask Gordon Brown.

We know that Tony Blair arrogantly and unnecessarily marched into Iraq shoulder-to-shoulder with George W. Bush. Why he decided to make such a strong statement is anyone's guess. He threw away his legacy, his party, and a good deal of his nation's respect and prestige (what they had left). It seems to this author that Blair suffered from the same ailment as Ian Fleming. He felt the need to reassure his countrymen than Britain still mattered. But instead of writing pulpy spy novels, he did something far more expensive and tragic. As the recent 2-part Frontline documentary, "Bush's War" outlines, Tony Blair might have been counting on a UN resolution to legitimize his zeal and quick support of the US. But when the resolution fell through, Blair continued to back Bush. UK troops occupied Basra and kept things relatively stable for 4 years.

Enter Gordon Brown. He knows he has to withdraw British troops from Basra soon. But he does so at a very slow pace. It seems to this author that the British slowly let Basra fall into the hands of Shiite militias without realizing it. At first, this tactic reduced violence in Basra. But then the powder keg exploded after the British left their base in October.

I believe that the chaos in Basra is linked to our special friends and their own, separate strategic fuck-up. Of course Blair shouldn't have joined this crusade to begin with. But what's Gordon Brown's bloody excuse?

Hillary's Embellishment / Obama's Home Run


I just have one question: Why did Hillary repeat her embellishment on her 1996 Bosnia trip, even when small newspapers were onto the inaccuracies in her story? Frank Rich of the NY Times asked that question over the past weekend (registration required).

No, actually, I have a far better question: Why didn't she simply point to her travels as senator in her argument that she is the most experienced candidate. She did go to Iraq, correct? Why not mention her trips to Iraq? It's dangerous, right? This speech (below) was one of her best on the senate floor.

Meanwhile, looking back at what Barry did two weeks ago, I can now say with confidence that his speech was a home run. He freaking knocked one out of the park with this March 18th speech.

Say hello to your next president. It's about time we had a progressive with a brain.

What Rahm Emanuel Could Learn From His Brother, Ari


Ari is a straight shooter and pulls no punches. Rahm is brilliant, speaks well, and is a leader in the House. But he doesn't use his talents to attack agressively. Ari, on the other hand, knows how to attack. How else can he be a Hollywood agent?

Ari Emanuel: What Hillary Really Learned in the White House

I don't agree with him that Hillary is a natural, clever liar. But I admire his bold attack.

Time For Changes At Starbucks


Photo by Flickr user Slightlynorth, used here under a Creative Commons license

Reuters: New Starbucks CEO describes plan to make stores more individual, buy next-generation espresso machines, and make the culture more positive to win back customers after the corporation's first quarterly decline in sales ever.

They don't have to worry about losing me and millions of other New Yorkers. They got us.

We're So Screwed


Let's recap to see how we got to this point, with Bush telling Wall Street that everything will be fine prior to the fire sale of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan / Chase.

Warren Buffett stated the obvious on March 3rd.

Daniel Gross at Slate explains why neither Republicans nor Democrats on the hill dare say the R-Word.

Economists Stiglitz and Blimes have a new book called The Three Trillion Dollar War. I assume you heard of it. It confirms that the Iraq occupation spending has had a direct impact on the Treasury and the US economy. Here is the Reuters story linked to the book's release.

And then we had the very quick demise of Bear Sterns. If an employee had his or her nest egg in company stock, then it is all gone.

In the opinion of this layperson, we're just another financial crhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifisis away from a self-sustaining stagflation cycle. Think about the price of oil, the global credit crunch, the sharp fall of the dollar, and now runs on smaller financial markets. It all contributes to unemployment, inflation, and credit crunch for both consumers and businesses. Add-in the tax dollar money brings used to bail-out smaller markets and corporations, ad we have a serious crisis already. It has all the ingredients to be the worst recession since World War 2.

And in case you needed further proof, Jim Cramer is the last man anyone should be listening to. He should be retired. He made his money as a hedge fund manager and he has zero credibility. Ignore him if you aren't ignoring him already.

And it looks like Australia might be screwed, too.

Show Them Your Scars, John. They Turn Brian On.


Thanks to Digby and Crooks and Liars who pointed this out:

Brian Williams, MSNBC, Wednesday March 5th:


You know what I thought was unsaid —they took their position Chris, we’re seeing the replay — they end up in this spot and the sun is coming is just from the side and there in the shadow is John McCain’s buckled, concave shoulder. It’s a part of his body the suit doesn’t fill out because of his war injuries. Again you wouldn’t spot it unless you knew to look for it. He doesn’t give the same full chested profile as the president standing next to him. Talk about a warrior.

Who needs romance novels? We have a natural writer in Brian Williams. The sun. The battle wounds. The full chest of George W. Bush. Oh my. Where's the codpiece?

Forget About Moynihan Station. The Deal Is Just About Dead.


The 1999 SOM rendering. It was beautiful then. It's meaningless now.

Back in 1999, the Clinton administration set-aside funding for the construction of a New Penn Station, to be designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill. The new station would be named after the senator who spearheaded the effort - the late Patrick Moynihan. It was a grand and noble idea - to give New Yorkers a proper West Side train station to make-up for the loss of the original Penn Station in 1960. I don't want to re-tell the whole story, but since then, we have seen the following:

2000-2002: Penn Station receives some renovations. New waiting areas, and a new NJ Transit concourse are built. Also a new speckled floor and escalator tunnels for the Amtrak concourse are installed. (Woo!)

2002: The project to transform the Farley Post Office into Moynihan Station is re-started. The State of New York acquires the Farley Post Office from the Federal Government. A press conference is held (one of Moynihan's final public appearances) to announce that work would soon begin. It didn't.

2005: SOM looses the project, and it is reveled that HOK (the famous stadium builder) has done a re-design. The refreshed project is less technologically advanced than the SOM design, but by then, the estimated cost of opening the new station had surpassed the original $900 Million.

2006: The plan goes back to SOM. A third design is unveiled. We learn that commercial real estate giant Vornado wants to get involved, and include one or two office towers with the station. It didn't work with the basement Penn Station / MSG / One Penn Plaza back in 1964, so why not build another faiulre? The Dolan family (Cablevision) then gets involved (always a bad sign, right?). The Dolans want to leverage the plan to fit-in with their grand scheme to build a new Madison Square Garden on 11th Avenue, just west of the Farley Post Office. Vornado would build its new towers where One Penn Plaza and MSG now stand. Estimated price tag skyrockets.

2006: The project is dealt a huge blow. Amtrak announces that it won't be moving into its new home, because under the proposed arrangements, it would have to pay rent, which it wouldn't be able to afford (for obvious reasons). So now we're thinking about building a world-class train station just for New Jersey commuters? Travellers to and from southern New England will remain with the rats in the MSG basement? This is looking bad.

2007: The project, assumed dead, is briefly resurrected. The proposed towers get higher. How about 1,200 feet? That's about 100 feet taller than the Empire State Building two avenue blocks east. But how would this project, now estimated at $2 Billion, be funded?

Would now be a good time to mention that the $900 Million pledged by the Clinton Administration in 1999 was taken-back by the Republican Congress after The Day That Changed Everything? Yeah. It went to contractors in Iraq or got absorbed by tax cuts.

2008: The project is in its last throes. Time to call it, doctor?

I say, call it. It's a shame. But this is what happens when a project designed to improve the lives of New Yorkers becomes a giant urban planning project no one needs (except the developers and land owners), and then collapses under its own inflated budget and lack of justification for the tacked-on commercial space.

Also, keep in mind the project was intentionally delayed by NY House Speaker Sheldon Silver just to prevent Governor Petaki from ever seeing construction begin or to take any credit for the project while in-office. That just strengthens my argument for New York City to secede from the State and become the District of Gotham. But that's another post for another time.

JPL Captures Image Of Avalanche On Mars


And no, not evidence of an avalanche, or the aftermath of an avalanche, but an avalanche that was happening as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over it on February 19th. The image shows dust and ice sliding down a 2,000-foot high cliff. Pretty darn cool. When a JPL probe captures a current event in our solar system, it is usually an active volcano (Io), or a giant storm (Saturn, Jupiter). But this image is a dramatic surprise, instantly recognizable as a quick event.

My Girl Was Right




My girl was correct about Wiki Media, Wikipedia, Wikia, and all things Wiki. She warned me not to trust it, and not to rely on it too much. I might continue to take a peek into Wiki world for a bit of information that can help me solve a crossword clue, determine the place of birth of a historical figure, or recap the past best-in-show winners of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. But a general rule needs to ne followed - step away from the Wikipedia, and pick up a book or magazine. Or better still, write something original, and fact-check using other resources.

And I have to say that my dad was correct to warn me about Wikipedia, although not explicitly. He warned me not to get seduced by epistemology. I think he was trying to tell me that the philosophical study of human knowledge is worthy, and becoming a smart skeptic is noble. But actually believing that human knowledge can centralized and bottled is a dangerous idea. Isn't that what Wikipedia is about? Co-founder Jimbo Wales was pretty clear where he stands when he said:


Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.

It's not that Wikipedia is not an accurate source of information. Over 80% of the information in Wiki is accurate in the audits and studies I have seen. Its top-down, authoritarian style of site maintenance is not democratic, but a fascinating look at how people who devote large amounts of their time to the site gain political and editorial power. It's what Wikipedia co-founder Jimbo Wales calls the 80-20 rule, 20% of Wikipedia's daily users control 80% of its content.

But in this post, I argue that Wikipedia is not all it is cracked-up to be. Case in point - who really benefits from Wiki? Cui bono? Is it you, or co-founder Jimbo Wales?

What's Wikipedia's real purpose? We can't be certain of its ultimate goal, but in just seven years, it has made Jimbo a millionaire and has gotten him laid more often.

Now it doesn't concern me who he is, or who he's boinking. But over the weekend, juicy news arrived that Mr. Wales' had a romantic relationship (however brief) with Rachel Marsden. Yes, THAT Rachel Marsden. The Canadian wingnut, Rachel Marsden, who stalked a former boyfriend, and briefly did a stint on a sexed-up Fox News late-night talk show called Red Eye. She was a co-host on the show, before her 'erratic behavior' got her fired last year. She was also the woman in the middle of the rather famous 1997 Simon Frasier University sexual harassment scandal, which revealed serious flaws in the University's harassment review process, ultimately forcing the University President to resign.

So what happened? This is how nutty our still-small Internet universe is:

Ms. Marsden contacted Jimbo Wales to complain that her biography on Wikipedia was constantly being attacked and defamed. Jimbo, being instantly enthralled that this right-wing babe was contacting him, struck-up a friendship. Phone calls and e-mails led to hot text messaging, which eventually led to a weekend of sex in a DC hotel. When they began to see each other is not confirmed, but seems to have happened soon after Mr. Wales and his wife separated (and his public statement emphasizes that). But interestingly, the story was broken by Valleywag, which is owned by Gawker media. Marsden told Gawker that she went out with Wales while in Georgetown (date unconfirmed). Both Marsden and Wales have spoken about their brief relationship, and apparently took little care to protect their AOL instant messages from the vacuum cleaner known as Google. But that didn't matter. When Jimbo publicly dumped Rachel last week, and used 'conflict of interest' as his justification, she leaked the IM's all over the net, and called him on his conflict-of-interest bullshit.

It's entertaining as hell. Where to begin? If you want to keep your sex life private, um, don't talk to the media about it, or dump your lover on a Wikipedia posting. But that's easy for me to say.

Let's see how the geeky administrators at Wikimedia talked about the relationship amongst themselves last fall. That's highly entertaining - seeing the volunteer serfs talking about their master's private life, since it intruded on their editing work and got the Rachel Marsden page locked in a bureaucratic, fact-checking review.

As Always, Sadly, No! and its commentators summarize it better than I ever could.

And Cliff aks the really big question: Why do men continue to fall for Rachel Marsden?

Why do guys still date Rachel Marsden, knowing the relationship will likely end in tears, court action and news stories where they're running to a car with their coat over their heads?

Figure it out guys, nobody, no matter how questionably hot, is worth waking up with a boiled bunny in your bed. At this point she has enough shell-shocked Ex's to form their own support group.


So to recap what I learned today:

1. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, but like many free things, you get what you pay for. In this case, it is an almost secret society that holds onto editorial power and act as gatekeepers and bureaucrats inside a giant black box. Sean Percival is right. They might as well write the damn thing in doublespeak. The fact that Mr. Wales is a big Lost fan strengthens my point, as Doughty Pantload would say.

2. Wikipedia might be a dot-org, a non-profit foundation that accepts donations. But now the truth is coming out that Mr. Wales (and perhaps others) have been skimming the revenue. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of that story.

3. Rachel Marsden is one dangerous woman. Sure, getting seduced by her must be "volcanic" at first. But then it so quickly turns to tears. Just ask Mr. Wales. His IM's are all over the net. And Rachel is selling a t-shirt and a sweater he left behind on eBay. His credibility has been severely damaged.

There always was a Wikipedia backlash. Maybe the backlash is going mainstream? And be sure to hear more about Ms. Marsden. Considering her history, we will be receiving another story involving her in a few months. It could be sooner. Her last sighting before this was at last month's CPAC conference.

The Wire: It Ain't No Morality Play *Spoilers at all links*


Omar Little ('Omar'). Shotgun wielding, gay, 34-year old, robber of drug dealers. Local folk hero.


Felicia 'Snoop' Pearson. Cold blooded, spitting, cursing, fearless killer. Stephen King called her, "perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a television series."

This is far premature for me to be writing about The Wire, since I haven't watched a second of Season 5, but I couldn't resist. For those who are following, the ongoing discussion at Slate.com is very good, even when it stretches its arguments (I still don't understand how the show is Neo-marxist).

According to fans, the last three episodes of The Wire (episodes 7, 8 and 9) have been absolutely amazing and devastating. Even a David Simon fan like myself, who is far behind on the series, couldn't avoid following the excitement that suddenly saved the fifth and final season. And happily, David Simon isn't out to stage a morality play ending. He is letting events play-out in the seedy world he created. David Plotz in Slate sums it up simply:

The lesson of The Wire has to be that the game never stops and that it always gets worse.

It's a very simple theme for what many believe is the greatest television series ever. It was truly a highbrow show about low-life, hardcore street crime. It was a fascinating mix, and a success story that a crime drama can still be compelling television without being pulpy (think The Sopranos). I just hope it wasn't critically acclaimed simply because it had more fully-developed Black characters than any TV show before it. White guilt should not the be cause for The Wire's success. It was far-superior writing and character development that made the show the very best, like Homicide before it.

Today Lads, We Win


We had better. We desperately need three points. I shouldn't say 'we'. I am not a Geordie. OK. So the Lads had better win.

The game is being shown at 16:30 today (Saturday) at Nevada Smiths. It will most likely be shown in the downstairs lounge, as the Spanish games are being shown upstairs. And some of my mates hope that the bird who roots for Blackburn will be there as well.

Howay The Lads! Let's bloody win for a change!

UPDATE: Well, the game was shown on the big screen upstairs. But Newcastle lost again. When will this misery end?

Barack Delivers A Smackdown. Excessive? Maybe. Deserved? Yes.

Hillary Clinton's campaign released a fear-mongering TV ad yesterday, sharply attacking Obama's lack of foreign policy experience:

Here is Barack Obama's devastating response. Like double-barrel devastating.


"We’ve seen these ads before. They’re the kind that play on peoples’ fears to scare up votes.

"Well it won’t work this time. Because the question is not about picking up the phone. The question is – what kind of judgment will you make when you answer? We’ve had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer.

"But I stood up and said that a war in Iraq would cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars. I said that it would distract us from the real threat we face – and that we should take the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan. That’s the judgment I made on the most important foreign policy decision of our generation, and that’s the kind of judgment I’ll show when I answer that phone in the White House as President of the United States – the judgment to keep us safe, to go after our real enemies, and to provide the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States with the equipment they need when we do send them into battle, and the respect and care they have earned when they come home. And I’ll never see the threat of terrorism as a way to scare up votes, because it’s a threat that should rally this country around our common enemies. That’s the judgment we need at 3am. And that’s the judgment that I am running for President to provide."

Game. Set. Match. That was one hell of a response. The politics of fear have to end (until they inevitably come back again)