"It was a very good day and went very smoothly. There were a lot less casualties than normal. It is a good part of the local heritage and a tradition we would like to keep going."

And so ground zero remains a pit, a hole, a void. As The New York Post has noticed, more time has passed since George Pataki first unveiled the "final design" of the Freedom Tower than it took to build the Empire State Building. For New Yorkers this saga is a raucous political narrative whose cast of characters includes a rapacious real-estate developer, a seriously irritating architect with even more irritating designer eyeglasses, a governor with self-delusional presidential ambitions and a mayor obsessed with bringing New York the only target that may rival the Freedom Tower as terrorist bait, the Olympics.

But there is another, national narrative here, too. Bothered as New Yorkers may be by what Charles Schumer has termed the "culture of inertia" surrounding ground zero, that stagnation may accurately reflect most of America's view about the war on terror that began with the slaughter of more than 2,700 at the World Trade Center almost four years ago. Though the vacant site is a poor memorial for those who died there, it's an all too apt symbol for a war on which the country is turning its back.

Wider Angle exists to promote cultural, intellectual, and musical diversity and creativity. Our Podcast is an extension of this ideal and features music from independent artists. We promote these artists so our readers and listeners can hear them outside the mainstream, commercial, stifling radio market that blankets not only America, but the world. Wider Angle attempts to spread brilliance and inspiration to the netizens of the world. Short of that, we hope to inspire brilliant people to make the world better.

An Australian tourist was sentenced to 20 years in jail yesterday for attempting to smuggle more than 4kg (9lb) of marijuana into the Indonesian holiday island of Bali, concluding a trial that has gripped her country.

[...]

Her plight has galvanised Australia into an unprecedented outpouring of public sympathy for an alleged drug smuggler after defence lawyers claimed she was an unwitting victim of gangs who employ airport baggage handlers to stuff drugs into luggage.

It had been maintained that the drugs found in her unlocked surfboard bag were planted. The claim appeared to gain weight when it emerged that baggage handlers at Sydney airport had been involved in a drug smuggling ring that had been operating the day Corby flew to Indonesia.

Scores of people flocked to her defence after learning she faced the death penalty.

A former mobile phone businessman, Ron Bakir, agreed to finance her defence, several websites were set up to campaign for her freedom, a lawyer regularly flew to Bali to help and the case has dominated radio chat shows.

The vast majority of callers have been Corby supporters. One newspaper survey said 90% of Australians thought she was innocent. They included the film star Russell Crowe, who said the government should be doing more to secure Corby's release.

Asked if the Iraqi insurgency was getting more difficult to defeat militarily, Bush answered with a classic Dubya-ism.

"No, I don't think so," he said, "I think they're being defeated. And that's why they continue to fight."

It's the sort of answer that makes you pause and scratch your head for just long enough to give him a chance to change the subject.

Listening to Voinovich's desperately cracking voice was utterly heartbreaking. And so was this line, written by Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Sabrina Eaton after the close of the senator's speech: "With that, Voinovich returned to his seat and fidgeted with a yellow highlighting pen until he regained his composure."

Anyone who has ever cried at work knows exactly what that moment felt like, trying so hard to fight back tears that it only makes you cry more. It is the loneliest feeling in the world.

I think we heard the Bush administration in full voice this week, laughing at those who ask questions, wringing tears from those who would dare dissent.

If it were a Broadway show, you could buy a ticket, watch the show and then walk out into the open air. But this is our real life, and there are not even fire exits.

"Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me," he said.

The financing for Shadow's successor won't be trivial. Preserving the cells, a necessary beginning for anyone interested in creating a clone, can run $300 to $1,400, not including veterinarian costs and yearly storage fees. But these expenses pale in comparison with the cost of the clone itself: at Genetic Savings and Clone, the company that stored Shadow's DNA, the price is $32,000 - reduced from the original $50,000, but still an impressive sum.

Mr. Cheng said that he would pay whatever it cost - although he is waiting until the price drops a bit - because he misses his cat so. "Shadow had two really long, funny-looking teeth like sabers," he said. "Everyone loved him."

Yuri Slezkine, author of The Jewish Century -- Don't get me wrong, I liked the book. But it contains an embarrassing misreading of Marx's "On the Jewish Question" that just smacks of sloppy research. Mr. Slezkine, you will be respectfully slapped by me, Burt Reynolds.

"After I changed the startup sound (which required much persuasion and working around the system) the ROM engineers continued changing it with each new machine. Some of them were weak, such as the Stanley Jordon guitar strum used on the first PowerMacs. I objected to it, because that sound had no "power". The engineer wasn't a recording engineer, and not familiar enough with audio. The sound was hallow and without depth. When Steve Jobs returned in 1997, I heard he wanted only one sound for all Macs. He wanted the "good one" which was the one I created. At least that's how I heard the story, and I was still working there at the time."

Sihamoni was quoted before the fight stating that he felt since his fighters out-numbered the lion 42 to 1, that they “… could out-wit and out-muscle [it].”

Activism alert:
Tell Congress to Oppose the "Snitch" Bill [Drug Policy Alliance Network]

Drug war extremists in Congress want to throw you in prison for two years if you fail to turn your neighbor in for committing a non-violent drug offense. They also want to create mandatory minimum sentences for EVERY federal offense. E-mail Congress right now.

Fight For Truth [Drug Policy Alliance Network]

Martinibomb "The Love God" [Comfort Stand]

Kraft Rules [AMERICAblog]
So Does Senfronia Thompson [AMERICAblog]

13 & God "Men of Station" [Anticon]

Crazy Crazy Religious Freaks [Harpers]
Don't Be "Spooky" Or "Weird" with Barbara Walters [Romenesko]
The Good Word [Denver Westword]

Tremoflex9000 "Dream" [GarageBand]

Sixfinger [BoingBoing]
Phallic Logo Awards [B3TA]

Jack White and Beck "Ninety-Nine" [You Aint No Picasso]

Voinivich Rules Like Kraft, Bitches! [The Rachel Maddow Show]

Ivy "Four In the Morning (Royal Sapien Remix)" [CDR]

Generation Shuffle? Oh god, I feel sick. [Gawker]
Sundance Cinemas [unmediated]
Brad Cohen Launches BitTorrent Search [unmediated]

Jonathan Coulton "First of May" [GarageBand]

Gannet Newspapers Get Worse! But How? [Gawker]
Domino Setup in Half-Life (video!) [BoingBoing]
An Open Letter to the Totally Impractical Size Chart for Women's Clothing [McSweeny's]

Imogen Heap "Hide and Seek" [Gorilla vs. Bear]

Wider Angle Podcast #004 [May 26, 2005]
The best of the web shot into your earholes.

Music and news with a blast of the spiceweasel. BAM!

Activism alert:
MoveOnPAC's Emergency Petition to Save the Courts
Hands Off Public Broadcasting from Media Matters

Nancy Sinatra "Bang Bang" [Gorilla vs. Bear]

Google Hires Bush Appointee as VP [AMERICAblog]

Audio Bullys "Shot Me Down" [Antville]

Scott McClellan Disingenuous? [Think Progress]
Sen. Bill Frist Ignores Reality [Think Progress]

Syd "Back Home" [GarageBand]

Verizon Tech Support Not Supportive [Gizmodo]
iMuffs [Eyebeam]
LexisNexis Hackers Reveal Intentions [Wired News]
foo_pod [Hydrogen Audio]

Royal Sapien "Blips" [Olaris Records]

The Self-Deception of Bill O'Reilly [Wonkette]
Google and Yahoo! Ad Revenue to Surpass Broadcast Networks [Lost Remote]
NY Press On The Decline? [Gawker]
Funniest Weather Promo Ever. [Lost Remote]

mr Epic "Down Low" [Magnatune]

Chihuly at Kew [Protein OS]
Graffiti Analysis Projections [Eyebeam]

Exit the Ordinary "Grey Lines" [GarageBand]
Rachel Starr "Till There Was You (Royal Sapien Remix)" [CDR]

Music Critic Demands Portable Music [BoingBoing]
Hong Kong Disney Serves Shark Soup [BoingBoing]
Romance Novel Cover Remixes [BoingBoing]

The Silent Years "Make Up" [GarageBand]

Amazon.com feeds out a lot of product images, putting out the same book cover (say) in a variety of sizes and formats. By experimentation, I found that they don't actually have all the sizes and formats stored. Instead, they have a system that generates each requested image. The details of size and format are built into the image's URL. What that means that, if you want, you can create URLs that generate odd and unlikely Amazon images (you can see my gallery of images here). The proper combination of product choice and added elements and effects could create an interesting visual. What you see here is my best understanding of things based on trial and error; I have no inside info.

The Cell Processor
This is a 9 core processor, one of these cores is something similar to a PowerPC G5 and acts as a controller. The remaining 8 cores are called APUs and these are very high performance vector processors. Each APU contains it's own block of high speed RAM and is capable of 32 GigaFlops (32bit). The APUs are independent processors and can act alone or can be set up to process a stream of data with different APUs working on different stages. This ability to act as a "stream processor" gives access to the full processing power of a Cell which is more than 10 times higher than even the fastest desktop processors.

In addition to the raw processing power the Cell includes a high performance multi-channel memory subsystem and a number of high speed interconnects for connecting to other Cells or I/O devices.

Distributing Processing
Cells are specifically designed to work together. While they can be directly connected via the high speed interconnects they can also be connected in other ways or distributed over a network. The Cells are not gaming or computer specific, they can be in anything from PDAs to TVs and all can be used to effectively act as a single system. The infrastructure for this is built into each Cell as they operate on "Software Cells" which contain routing information as well as programs and data.

Parallel programming is usually complex but in this case the OS will look at the resources it has and distribute tasks accordingly, this process does not involve re-programming. If you want more processing power you simply add more Cells, you do not need to replace the existing ones as the new Cells will augment the existing ones.

Overall the Cell architecture is an architecture for distributed, parallel processing using very powerful computational engines developed using a highly aggressive design strategy. These devices shall be produced in vast numbers so they will provide vast processing resources at a low cost.

Wider Angle Podcast #003 [May 25, 2005]
The best of the web shot into your earholes.

Annointed with canola oil and afraid of calico cats. Just like Donald.


Raging Family "Ink A Dink A Doo" [Hype Machine]

Free your music from iPod tyranny [Wired News]
Use your iPod with Winamp! (Sorry Mac users, you're stuck with iTunes)

Eddie Kendricks "Keep On Truckin (DJ Spinna Remix)" [Hype Machine]

Police using projectors to solve crime [BoingBoing]
Stupid Stupid Star Wars fans make light sabers. Stupid. [BoingBoing]
Publishing: More Titles, Fewer Sales [BoingBoing]

Via Audio "Developing Active People" [GarageBand]

Guess-the-Google [Eyebeam]
Wikitrivia [Eyebeam]

Rilo Kiley "It's A Hit (Live)" [HypeMachine]

Lizz Winstead Sues Air America Radio [New York Post]
New York Press publisher resigns [Gawker]

Peter Adams "Cementalisque" [GarageBand]

Ibiza club Eden to tour US [Resident Advisor]
Lenny Kravitz' loft in SoHo on market since 1903 [Gawker]

Mark Schwaber "Ghosting" [GarageBand]

Google Video Upload
Google Pig Latin (Ooglegay?)

Mason Proper "Life's Cornucopia" [GarageBand]

Method Design [Design Observer]

Behavior "Anywhere But Here" [GarageBand]

Mary Letourneau and Vili Fualaau. Jennifer Wilbanks and John Mason. Rick and Karen Santorum. Their marriages, present and/or future, are in jeopardy...

New York Times: "When I asked [Rick Santorum] if he viewed gay marriage as a threat to his own marriage, he answered quickly. 'Yes, absolutely,' he said. 'It threatens my marriage. It threatens all marriages.'"

It sounds like overblown rhetoric, but think about it. Already, most straight men don't like to hold hands with other men, because it's considered a gay thing. Same with owning small fussy dogs, or throwing Oscars parties, or trolling the Internet for Brazilian tranny-porn. Even soliciting young men in chatrooms for anonymous gay sex is now considered gay -- especially, in a particularly galling double standard, if you're a Republican politician. So make no mistake about it. There's no such thing as "a little gay marriage." Once marriage goes gay, it's gonna be gayer than a tea party at Elton John's house. Same with divorce. In fact, straight marriage is probably already doomed, but thanks for taking a stand, Rick.

The BBC is heading for a clash with the government after announcing its implacable opposition to any review of its funding that would result in sharing any of its £2.8bn licence fee with other broadcasters.

The prospect of the "top-slicing" of the licence fee, which would allow ITV or Channel 4 to pitch for funding for public service arts, religious or educational output, was raised in the green paper issued by the government earlier this year on the future of the corporation.

The BBC chairman, Michael Grade, described top-slicing as "a thoroughly bad idea" and said it was "not good news for viewers and listeners".

He said sharing public funds would "break the clear and well-understood line of accountability between the corporation and the licence fee payer" and would "seriously weaken the BBC's ability to invest" in programming.

Wider Angle Podcast #002 [May 24, 2005]
The best of the web shot into your ears.

This is officially version 1.0, although it's show 2. Out of beta faster than Google ever could be. Google's mother smells of elderberries.

Burning Question: Matt Drudge's New Army Boy [Gawker.com]
Radar Magazine: Britney is Laughing At All of Us

Jimmy Chamberlin Complex feat. Billy Corgan "Loki Cat" [Daily Refill]

iTunes 4.9 to support podcasting [/.]

DJ Dangermouse "Bush Boys" Video [GNN]

Usenet's Domination: Anonymity [Wired News]

Greg Walsh "The Sea of Something" [GarageBand]

Associated Press article on Translators in Iraq [Wider Angle / AP]

Jackson Brown "It's Mellow In the Sun" [GarageBand]

Grace Vs. O'Reilly: Evil At All Costs [Poynter Online / Romenesko]
DailyKos Presents YearlyKos

Stark Effect "I Miss You" [GarageBand]

Taxi Doll "Look At What You Get" [GarageBand]

Bono Requests Mobile Phones from Fans [Shey.net]
McSweeny's: Folk Instruments or B-Movie Monsters Fought By Gamera?

Jonathan Coulton "Ikea" [GarageBand]

It's one of the most dangerous civilian jobs in one of the world's most dangerous countries: translating Arabic for the U.S. military in Iraq.

One by one, little noticed in the daily mayhem, dozens of interpreters have been killed - mostly Iraqis but 12 Americans, too. They account for 40 percent of the 300-plus death claims filed by private contractors with the U.S. Labor Department.

Riding in bomb-blasted Humvees, tagging along on foot patrols in Fallujah or dashing into buildings behind Marines, translators are dying on the job, but also facing danger at home: hunted by insurgents who call them pro-American collaborators.

"If the insurgents catch us, they will cut off our heads because the imams say we are spies," said Mustafa Fahmi, 24, an Iraqi interpreter with Titan Corp., the biggest employer of linguists in Iraq. "I've been threatened like fifteen times, but I won't quit. A neighbor saw me driving and said, 'I am going to kill you.'"

Tracklisting for Wider Angle Podcast #001 [May 23, 2005]

A Brilliant Career "Sportsbar Superstar" (GarageBand)
Jessica Domain "Stay" (GarageBand)
O'er the Dreaming Earth "Climb to Midnight" (GarageBand)
Loquat "Swingest Chain" (GarageBand)
Peter Adams "The Disappeared" (GarageBand)
Sugarplum Fairies "#2 Kraft Paperbag" (GarageBand)

So if a smoking gun fires in the woods and nobody bothers reporting on it, does it still prove the president lied?

Eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq -- when President George W. Bush was still publicly saying things like "We're doing everything we can to avoid war" -- Bush had already predetermined that the invasion would occur. The case for war, however, was recognized as "thin" since Saddam Hussein was not an actual threat to the U.S. or to his neighbors. The evidence regarding his weapons of mass destruction and alleged links to terrorism, the selected rationales for the invasion, would have to be "fixed" in order to justify the invasion.

That is the testimony of a top-secret memo prepared for top-ranking British officials on July 23, 2002.

The memo was made public on May 1, 2005, when it was published in the Times of London. Read the entire memo here.

TVNewser The National Review has the scoop on CNN’s American Morning co-host, the one and only Bill Hemmer. Hemmer, it seems, is having problems getting his New York job moved to D.C. (There are still summer internships available, no?) Reports the Newser Review:

Hemmer “has no idea how to do anything himself,” a network source tells the blog. “When he does interviews, producers do everything, from writing his scripts to doing most of his interviews and footage is cut to make it look like he’s working.”

Herbert Hoover may have triggered the Great Depression, but he didn't invade another nation on false pretenses, authorize torture of prisoners, or try to stack the courts.

Telecom giants such as BT and France Telecom will also launch new initiatives to link the internet to the TV through a set-top box later this year. A company called HomeChoice already offers a similar service in the London area. HomeChoice programming is available via 1Mb, 2Mb or 4Mb broadband connections with up to 80 digital TV and radio channels

The BBC already has an interactive channel (BBCi), so online viewers should be ahead of the game in the UK. Executives reason that whether they view content on their computer screen, web-connected TV or a portable device, they'll want to access BBC shows "any time, any place, anywhere".

UPDATE
PBS and WGBH are doing this in schools.

PBS and WGBH have inked a deal with Library Video Company to provide schools with their choice of educational video -- all available on demand. "Every school in the U.S. and Canada is going to want to have access to their programs," said Andrew Schlessinger, CEO of Library Video Company. More...

A reader sent us another image from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 booth, where they are demoing real-time games powered by the Xbox 360. You can see in the picture that there is an Xbox 360 viewable through a little slot, implying that the games themselves are running on pre-production consoles, but if you actually come around to the side, you can see two Apple G5 PowerMacs, the development systems for the 360—plus a desktop fan to keep them cooled down.

Scandal? Not really. A bit disingenuous? Totally.

2. Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults. Maureen Dowd was still writing that Alberto R. Gonzales "called the Geneva Conventions 'quaint' " nearly two months after a correction in the news pages noted that Gonzales had specifically applied the term to Geneva provisions about commissary privileges, athletic uniforms and scientific instruments. Before his retirement in January, William Safire vexed me with his chronic assertion of clear links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, based on evidence only he seemed to possess.

No one deserves the personal vituperation that regularly comes Dowd's way, and some of Krugman's enemies are every bit as ideological (and consequently unfair) as he is. But that doesn't mean that their boss, publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., shouldn't hold his columnists to higher standards.

I didn't give Krugman, Dowd or Safire the chance to respond before writing the last two paragraphs. I decided to impersonate an opinion columnist.

Today is the day Army recruiters are taking a mandatory day off for some ethics training.

Lesson #1: Don't tell high school students that Iraq is safer than Cincinnati. That's not true, even though Jerry Springer lives there...

Lesson #2: No one is going to believe there is a $20,000 signing bonus

Lesson #3: Stop getting caught by undercover cameras

(Side note: Anyone else notice local media is doing the great investigative work these days?)

On today's show Rachel will play some really explosive sound from Cincinnati area recruiters lying to high school students.

The Washington Redskins, Manchester United and the Welsh rugby team have all been playing with an unfair advantage. Just seeing their red kit is seemingly enough to cow their opponents into submission even before a ball is kicked.

A pair of British anthropologists have discovered that teams are more likely to win if they wear red.

Teams who wear blue tend to take a more nuanced view of the issues and place a greater emphasis on personal freedom which can make it difficult to communicate their policy goals to rural areas without seeming self-indulgent or elitist.

No mention of green.

The creators of the NeCord Necoro cat robot should be fined and jailed for ignoring the the Uncanny Valley study, which found that robots that are almost-but-not-quite-completely lifelike are scary.
Link (Thanks, Tim!)

Researchers in South Korea have created the first human embryonic stem-cell lines using DNA from injured or sick donors who could theoretically benefit from such cells.

[...]

"This report brings science a giant step forward toward the day when some of humankind's most devastating diseases and injuries can be effectively treated through the use of embryonic stem cells," said the research team's leader, Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University.

However, the experiment also raises fresh ethical and regulatory questions about embryonic stem-cell research, just as Congress is preparing to take up the subject.

Thoughts?

Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

The PS3 is powered by the "Cell" chip, which aims to be significantly more powerful than Intel's Pentium 4, the most common chips for today's PCs, and any other existing game machine processors.

Sony developed the microprocessor with International Business Machines and Toshiba and its super-powerful "RSX" graphics chip with Nvidia.

With a built-in Ethernet port for high-speed internet access, PlayStation 3 allows gamers to surf the web while playing games.

"In addition to games, PS3 will, of course, be able to perform non-gaming functions such as digital music, movies and photographs even during game play," said