"Now this constitution has come out, and it didn't come out as the national compact that we thought it was going to be," he said.

"And there's division there ... and that caused the situation to change a little bit," Casey said.

Is that what other countries called the U.S. Civil War? Division? Interesting.

"The enemy is losing," [Rumsfeld] said.

*So mad it's hard to type.

KARL ROVE: Boy Genius, Turd Blossom

Before, I had this period where I thought you can never re-use anything and always do a new style for everything. That basically proved impossible, besides you are in danger of just ripping different other styles off. Therefor, I was happy to explore that handmade typography idea a bit further. I absolutely don't think that this is the solution to every project. I think each project calls for different strategies, not just content-wise but also form wise.

With Father's Day approaching, many sons and daughters may run for the tie rack for a quintessential, if stereotypically sedate holiday tradition. But Shemtov said such a gift does not have to be humdrum, not if you buy neckwear from his product line.

Judith Miller's decision to testify before the CIA leak case grand jury came after she obtained a waiver offered "voluntarily and personally" by a source who said she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality. Miller says the source -- I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff -- had made clear that he genuinely wanted her to testify. The Philadelphia Inquirer was the first news outlet to report Miller's release. (Read statements from Miller, NYT executive editor Bill Keller and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.)

Lullabubs are rocking robotic feet that fit under the legs of most baby-prisons, playpens, cribs, etc, and then synchronistically rock your proto-human back and forth without the need for boring adult intervention. Link (via Gizmodo)

A long quest for booty from the Spanish colonial era appears to be culminating in Chile with the announcement by a group of adventurers that they have found an estimated 600 barrels of gold coins and Incan jewels on the remote Pacific island.

"The biggest treasure in history has been located," said Fernando Uribe-Etxeverria, a lawyer for Wagner, the Chilean company leading the search. Mr Uribe-Etxeverria estimated the value of the buried treasure at US$10bn (£5.6bn).

The announcement set off ownership claims. The treasure hunters claimed half the loot was theirs and said they would donate it to non-profit-making organisations. The government said that they had no share to donate.

It also prompted speculation about the contents of what is considered to be one of the great lost treasures from the Spanish looting of South America. Chilean newspapers were filled with reports that the stash includes 10 papal rings and original gold statues from the Incan empire.

Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the powerful House Republican majority leader, was accused by a Texas grand jury today of criminal conspiracy in a campaign fund-raising scheme.

Mr. DeLay was indicted on one count charging that he violated state election laws in September 2002. Two political associates, John D. Colyandro and James W. Ellis, were indicted with him.

[...]

"I have done nothing wrong," Mr. DeLay said, adding that he had violated "no law, no regulation, no rule of the House."

Oh, I wouldn't exactly say that. Good riddance.

UPDATE
DeLay's response in Windows Media and Quicktime. He even talks about "hard work" and a "war to win." Sounds vaguely familiar.

Think Progress has more on Ronnie Earle.

Working some 600 miles south of Tokyo off the Bonin Islands, known in Japan as the Ogasawara Islands, they managed to photograph the creature with a robotic camera at a depth of 3,000 feet. During a struggle lasting more than four hours, the 26-foot-long animal took the proffered bait and eventually broke free, leaving behind an 18-foot length of tentacle.

The giant squid, the researchers conclude, "appears to be a much more active predator than previously suspected, using its elongate feeding tentacles to strike and tangle prey." They report that the tentacles could apparently coil into a ball, much as a python envelops its victims.

Iraqis expressed fury on Wednesday over the three-year jail sentence for Lynndie England, the U.S. soldier notorious for holding a naked inmate by a leash in Abu Ghraib prison, saying it exposed American hypocrisy.

"The whole thing is theatre. The Americans want to pretend they defend human rights and are a civilised nation," said Munir Abdel Sahib, a university lecturer.

"I believe that England would not have committed these crimes without orders from above."

In court testimony, England blamed her involvement on Graner, the abuse ringleader, who is now married to another woman who pleaded guilty to abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. . .

Awesome set of food photos with little people on them. They're buried in a Flash interface (grr, Flash), but it's worth the trouble to find them. Skip the intro, click on "minimiam", and then select one of the "galeries" (primeurs, gourmandise, etc.). (via dtb) #

If you spend any time in restaurants, you might find May We Tell You About Our Specials This Evening? as hilarious as I did. #

"Floating Island" is a mini version of Central Park being towed around Manhattan by a tugboat (photos here)...it's a conceptual art piece by Robert Smithson. This weekend, a group of folks in a motorboat tried to board the floating park and install a miniature version of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates. When the captain of the boat towing the island "looked out across the East River Thursday afternoon and saw another piece of conceptual art gaining on him, he did not view the development kindly". #

The Mirror and Moss have been exchanging blows for a long time - long before The Mirror struck a direct hit with its newest report on Moss, who lost lucrative contracts with advertisers like H&M as a result.

Back in July, however, it was The Mirror that was apologizing. That was after Moss won a libel suit against the paper, collecting undisclosed damages over reports in The Sunday Mirror that she had collapsed into a cocaine-induced coma in 2001 in Barcelona.

The newspaper was forced at that time to apologize for the distress and embarrassment it had caused Moss.

During her sabbatical, she said, she would often sit in her backyard in Venice, Calif., thinking and playing with pine cones. "I was making little pine-cone people with razor blades," Ms. Apple said, raking her fingers through her wavy brown hair. "That's all I did."

Her inertia did not sit well with some in her immediate circle. They accused Ms. Apple of being lazy, crazy and unproductive, she said. "It really hurt a couple of close relationships of mine," said Ms. Apple, who split with her boyfriend Paul Thomas Anderson, the film director, three years ago. "It infuriated me because they couldn't believe that when I'm sitting and thinking that's how I work."

Several years ago she decided that she was ready to begin recording again and called on Jon Brion, who produced "When the Pawn. ..." Their collaboration, while smooth before, was shaky this time. "Jon would play me stuff and I wouldn't be able to tell what I liked and what I didn't like," Ms. Apple said. After emerging from a deep funk, she eventually decided to rerecord her songs with the producer Mike Elizondo, who has worked with Dr. Dre.

According to Ms. Apple, things were going well until executives at Sony began asking her to submit individual songs for their approval. Only then would they determine how much more recording money she would receive. Sony had already sunk nearly $800,000 into recording the original version of "Extraordinary Machine."

"They basically wanted me to audition my songs," Ms. Apple said, visibly offended.

* Sufjan Stevens will play an acoustic set at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City on Monday, Oct 3, headlining a stellar lineup of local artists including Adam Green, Akron/Family, Grizzly Bear, Wooden Wand and Other Passengers. "Special guests" are promised, and all proceeds go to the Salvation Army.

Inmates in Templeman III, one of several buildings in the Orleans Parish Prison compound, reported that as of Monday, August 29, there were no correctional officers in the building, which held more than 600 inmates. These inmates, including some who were locked in ground-floor cells, were not evacuated until Thursday, September 1, four days after flood waters in the jail had reached chest-level.

“Of all the nightmares during Hurricane Katrina, this must be one of the worst,” said Corinne Carey, researcher from Human Rights Watch. “Prisoners were abandoned in their cells without food or water for days as floodwaters rose toward the ceiling.”

Human Rights Watch called on the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an investigation into the conduct of the Orleans Sheriff's Department, which runs the jail, and to establish the fate of the prisoners who had been locked in the jail. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, which oversaw the evacuation, and the Orleans Sheriff’s Department should account for the 517 inmates who are missing from the list of people evacuated from the jail. [...]

According to officers who worked at two of the jail buildings, Templeman 1 and 2, they began to evacuate prisoners from those buildings on Tuesday, August 30, when the floodwaters reached chest level inside. These prisoners were taken by boat to the Broad Street overpass bridge, and ultimately transported to correctional facilities outside New Orleans.

But at Templeman III, which housed about 600 inmates, there was no prison staff to help the prisoners. Inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch varied about when they last remember seeing guards at the facility, but they all insisted that there were no correctional officers in the facility on Monday, August 29. A spokeswoman for the Orleans parish sheriff’s department told Human Rights Watch she did not know whether the officers at Templeman III had left the building before the evacuation.

According to inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch, they had no food or water from the inmates' last meal over the weekend of August 27-28 until they were evacuated on Thursday, September 1. By Monday, August 29, the generators had died, leaving them without lights and sealed in without air circulation. The toilets backed up, creating an unbearable stench.

“They left us to die there,” Dan Bright, an Orleans Parish Prison inmate told Human Rights Watch at Rapides Parish Prison, where he was sent after the evacuation.

As the water began rising on the first floor, prisoners became anxious and then desperate. Some of the inmates were able to force open their cell doors, helped by inmates held in the common area. All of them, however, remained trapped in the locked facility.

“The water started rising, it was getting to here,” said Earrand Kelly, an inmate from Templeman III, as he pointed at his neck. “We was calling down to the guys in the cells under us, talking to them every couple of minutes. They were crying, they were scared. The one that I was cool with, he was saying ‘I'm scared. I feel like I'm about to drown.' He was crying.”

Some inmates from Templeman III have said they saw bodies floating in the floodwaters as they were evacuated from the prison. A number of inmates told Human Rights Watch that they were not able to get everyone out from their cells.

"We are satisfied that the arms decommissioned represent the totality of the IRA's arsenal."

Welcoming the move, Prime Minister Tony Blair said IRA decommissioning had been "finally accomplished".

The general said: "We have observed and verified events to put beyond use very large quantities of arms which we believe include all the arms in the IRA's possession.

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

For a $100 donation to aid Katrina victims Brian Wilson will give you a personal call. For a $50 donation David Lee Roth will move into your garage.

Donna sez, "EFF has a new alert that lets you tell Congress to take a close look at WIPO's broadcast treaty before it slips under the wire and we get stuck with another WIPO-hatched debacle like the DMCA": Link. (Thanks, Donna!)

You are a
Social Liberal
(88% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(5% permissive)

You are best described as a:
Socialist

You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.

Hey, isn't Rove in charge of reconstruction efforts in the gulf coast? Because if he is, what the heck is he doing fundraising for Republicans in North Dakota, and on the exact same day that Rita is expected to make landfall?

The Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes has a few words to say about novelty, fashion and innovation.

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be:
And that which is done is that which shall be done:
And there is no new thing under the sun."

The Regency TR-1 transistor radio, made in 1954, had a decent claim to be a genuine piece of innovation, however. It was, by popular agreement, the world's first commercially sold transistor pocket radio.

Small enough to hold in your hand, and powered by batteries, it came in a variety of delicious colours, including green, pearlescent blue, lavender, white and red.

So far, the only plan for homeless residents to move back to New Orleans is Bush's bizarre Urban Homesteading Act. In his speech from the French Quarter, Bush made no mention of the neighborhood's roughly 1,700 unrented apartments and instead proposed holding a lottery to hand out plots of federal land to flood victims, who could build homes on them. But it will take months (at least) before new houses are built, and many of the poorest residents won't be able to carry the mortgage, no matter how subsidized. Besides, it barely touches the need: The Administration estimates that in New Orleans there is land for only 1,000 "homesteaders."

The truth is that the White House's determination to turn renters into mortgage payers is less about solving Louisiana's housing crisis than indulging an ideological obsession with building a radically privatized "ownership society." It's an obsession that has already come to grip the entire disaster zone, with emergency relief provided by the Red Cross and Wal-Mart and reconstruction contracts handed out to Bechtel, Fluor, Halliburton and Shaw--the same gang that spent the past three years getting paid billions while failing to bring Iraq's essential services to prewar levels [see Klein, "The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," May 2]. "Reconstruction," whether in Baghdad or New Orleans, has become shorthand for a massive uninterrupted transfer of wealth from public to private hands, whether in the form of direct "cost plus" government contracts or by auctioning off new sectors of the state to corporations.

An unsigned rapper who sells his home-made tapes on the street emerged as the unlikely star of the 10th annual Mobo awards last night. Hailing from Hornsey, north London, 23-year-old Sway Dasafo triumphed over industry heavyweights 50 Cent and The Game to win the award for best hip-hop act. [...]

Sway (real name Derek Andrew Safo) honed his craft on pirate radio and credits the BBC's black music station 1xtra with providing him with his first break back in 2002.

In the course of his brief, DIY career, he has attracted plaudits for a witty, complex rapping style that contrasts with the violent imagery of some of his counterparts. "I'm a positive person. The positivity comes out in my music," he said. "I don't go round holding guns to people's heads so I won't rap about holding guns to people's heads."

Sway distributes his mixtapes at markets and independent record shops and has so far resisted the temptation to sign to a major label. "I want to build up my own name first," he explained. "I need to prove I can be artistically independent." So far the tactic seems to be working. Sales of the mixtapes run in the thousands and he is currently putting the finishing touches to his debut album.

* * Beatles-Beatles wrote to mention a bill entitled "The Online Freedom of Speech Act". The act, if passed, would make the Internet into a form of media subject to campaign finance laws. From the article: "Amid the explosion of political activity on the Internet, a federal court has instructed the six-member Federal Election Commission to draw up regulations that would extend the nation's campaign finance and spending limits to the Web. The FEC, in its initial rules, had exempted the Internet. Bloggers told the Committee on House Administration that regulations encompassing the Internet, even ones just on advertising, would have a chilling effect on free speech. The FEC vice chairman also questioned the necessity of any rules."

Withdrawing troops from Iraq, Bush said, “would allow the terrorists to claim an historic victory over the United States.”

If terrorists are not defeated, they will “make that country a source of terror and instability … for decades.”

Army engineers have warned that flood defences damaged by Hurricane Katrina can only cope with 15cm (6in) of rain.

A stream of water at least nine metres (30ft) wide was reported to be spilling into the low-lying Lower Ninth Ward.

[...]

Up to 24 elderly evacuees died when the bus they were travelling in caught fire on a gridlocked motorway carrying traffic from Houston to Dallas.

Meanwhile, President Bush is going to Colorado to monitor hurricane preparations. (?!)

A Times correction, referring, natch, to a Alessandra Stanley TV review:

A television review yesterday about “How I Met Your Mother” and “Out of Practice,” on CBS, misstated the name of the popular show, ended last season, that the network is trying to replace with another hit. It is “Everybody Loves Raymond,” not “All About Raymond.”

Because why would you expect a TV critic to know the correct title of last season’s top-rated sitcom?

The fallout from last week’s Daily Mirror photo spread of model Kate Moss enjoying a healthy line or twelve of cocaine continues, as stalwart label Burberry followed Chanel and H&M in dropping Moss from their campaign. Cosmetics company Rimmel is also reviewing their contract with Moss, having officially expressed their dismay with the model for clearly wearing Clinique eyeshadow while being photographed blowing rails.

And how is Moss coping with her shame spiral? By smoking crack. So at least she can still pose in Vice or something.

The lesson is don't do blow in public. But really, even 14-year-olds know that. Andy Borowitz dreams up a better world for Ms. Moss:

One day after published photos of her allegedly using cocaine caused retailer H & M to drop her from an upcoming advertising campaign, supermodel Kate Moss has already bounced back nicely, scoring an unprecedented seven-figure endorsement deal with Colombia’s largest drug cartel.

According to those familiar with the deal, Ms. Moss signed a three-year contract for eight million dollars, with a street value of forty million.

The endorsement contract, believed to be the first ever offered by a major illegal drug ring, was announced today at the cartel’s headquarters in Bogotá, Colombia.

Sitting at a table before a room packed with reporters, a somewhat dazed Ms. Moss was flanked by beaming members of the cartel’s top management, including the international fugitive, drug lord Ricardo Diaz.

“This deal with Kate Moss is much, much more than an endorsement contract,” said Mr. Diaz. “We have every intention of making Kate Moss the new face of cocaine.”

Homosexuals, even those who are celibate, will be barred from becoming Roman Catholic priests, a church official said Wednesday, under stricter rules soon to be released on one of the most sensitive issues facing the church.

The official, said the question was not "if it will be published, but when," referring to the new ruling about homosexuality in Catholic seminaries, a topic that has stirred much recent rumor and worry in the church. The official, who has authoritative knowledge of the new rules, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the church's policy of not commenting on unpublished reports.

He said that while Pope Benedict XVI had not yet signed the document, it would probably be released in the next six weeks.

In addition to the new document, which will apply to the church worldwide, Vatican investigators have been instructed to visit each of the 229 seminaries in the United States.

You know, to weed out the rest of the gay.

Laura Bush said Tuesday, in a speech before the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., that much more good than bad has come from the response to the catastrophe, no matter what Americans see on TV. [...]

"Maybe the media hasn't shown us that much, but we've read about it and we do know about it."

She said evacuees she met in her three trips to the hurricane zone are thankful they don't have to start over, from zero, because of donations and others acts of kindness.

"That's what I've seen at each of the shelters I've visited," she said. "I've never heard a single word of complaint."

No word on whether this malware also deletes your web-browser, email client and IM software, since all these, too, are sometimes used to infringe on copyright. Link (Thanks, Lu!)

The National Enquirer is just out with a bombshell. The tab reports on its website today — for issues available in New York tomorrow and nationwide on Friday — that George W. Bush is back on the sauce, caught by Laura downing a shot after he learned of the Katrina crisis.

His worried wife yelled at him: “Stop, George.”

Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against “falling off the wagon” and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.

“When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot,” said one insider. “He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: “Stop George!”

The hurricane center said Rita had become "an extremely dangerous" Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 165 mph (265 kph) and higher gusts as it moved over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Rita lashed the Florida Keys on Tuesday but did little damage to the vulnerable Florida islands.

Rita's path included the Texas coast southwest of Galveston, where in 1900 at least 8,000 people died in the deadliest recorded U.S. hurricane.

A JetBlue airliner with faulty landing gear touched down safely Wednesday at Los Angeles International Airport after circling the region for three hours with its front wheels turned sideways, unable to be retracted into the plane.

The pilot landed by balancing on the back wheels, then eased onto the front tires, which shot flames along the runway before tearing off. The metal landing gear scraped for the final several yards.

The landing was made at an auxiliary runway set apart from the main terminals. Fire trucks and emergency crews massed near the runway to help the 139 passengers and six crew members

Within minutes of landing, the plane's door was opened and passengers walked down a stairway onto the tarmac, where buses waited

No injuries were immediately reported, fire officials said.

Well, it just so happens that I got the opportunity to visit the set of Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride in March, and Burton was right: there is something special about “the hand-made thing,” even though there was a significant digital component to the production as well. Indeed, the puppets, the sets, the energy were eventful to witness firsthand, particularly on such a signature Burton movie where graphic style is everything. The thing is, you can’t really appreciate the craft of stop motion until you observe it up close. Yes, it’s slow, meticulous and painstaking. Or, as actress Helena Bonham Carter observed in Toronto, “All animators are anal because it’s all about the detail.” And when you’re shooting two or three seconds of footage a day, one frame at a time with a still camera for 50 weeks, that’s about as detailed and labor intensive as it gets.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in his family’s hospital corporation about two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report and the price fell nearly 15 percent.

Frist held an undisclosed amount of stock in Hospital Corporation of America, based in Nashville, Tenn., the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain. On June 13, he instructed the trustee managing the assets to sell his HCA shares and those of his wife and children, said Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Frist.

Frist’s shares were sold by July 1 and those of his wife and children by July 8, Call said. The trustee decided when to sell the shares and the Tennessee Republican had no control over the exact time they were sold, she said.

HCA shares peaked at midyear, climbing to $58.22 a share on June 22. After slipping slightly for two weeks, the price fell to $49.90 on July 13 after the company announced its quarterly earnings would not meet analysts’ expectations. On Tuesday, the shares closed at $48.76.

The value of Frist’s stock at the time of the sale was not disclosed. Earlier this year, he reported holding blind trusts valued at $7 million to $35 million.