Category: Uncategorized

Timothy Garton Ash–who wrote a pretty neat book about the East German surveillance file that was kept on him–has a great piece in the Guardian about the voter revolution in the Ukraine:

Yet until Tuesday, many west Europeans probably did not even know that there was a presidential election going on in Ukraine. We were all focused on that other crucial presidential election, in the US. And, shamingly, Americans probably have done more to support the democratic opposition in Ukraine, and to shine a spotlight on electoral malpractices, than west Europeans have. Poles, Czechs and Slovaks have been more actively engaged, understanding how much is at stake.

What’s at stake is not just the future of Ukraine: whether it turns to Europe, the west and liberal democracy, or back to authoritarianism and Putin’s Russia. It’s also the future of Russia itself, and therewith of the whole of Eurasia. A Russia that wins back Ukraine, as well as Belarus, will again be an imperial Russia, as Putin wishes. A Russia that sees even Ukraine moving towards Europe and the west, has a chance of itself becoming, with time, a more normal, liberal, democratic nation-state. But at the moment, under Putin, Russia is launched on a different, worse trajectory, and western leaders have been united in their pusillanimity towards it. We have all been appeasers there.

Take a few minutes and give it a read.

Pistons-Pacers, reimagined by Picasso.

(thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link)

I think this whole blackmail plot about Gary Sheffield’s wife’s sex-tape with R. Kelly is made up. I mean, there’s no way the tape is real. Think about it: the tape was supposedly made 10 years ago, but Gary’s wife would’ve been older than 15 back then. QED.

I’m not fat, I’m just big skeletoned!

How could you not read an article that includes the line: “Davis still believes in innovation. As one example, the company recently started making a folding coffin bed”?

Coffins for fat people. From a company called Goliath Casket. I can’t make this stuff up.

Tom’s Rhinoplasty

I have a new favorite site.

It’s like the Source Awards in here!

This story just can’t be true . . .

Cheech and Chong were pikers

Nice try, but I hear that you can’t get the squid smell outta your nose for weeks . . .

Try my Wu-Tang style

Ol’ Dirty Bastard died last night. His “taking a limo and an MTV News crew to the welfare office” shtick was pretty funny. I never listened to his solo stuff or the Wu-Tang Clan till a few months ago.

He was only 35. For some reason, I thought ODB was, well, a bunch older than I am, but he was only two years up on me.

Heaven knows how many kids he left behind.

Jewish holiday

From Judith Miller’s obit for Yasser Arafat:

In the 1960’s, he pioneered what became known as “television terrorism” – air piracy and innovative forms of mayhem staged for maximum propaganda value. Among the more spectacular deeds he ordered was the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In 1986, a group linked to Mr. Arafat but apparently acting independently seized the Achille Lauro cruise ship and threw overboard an elderly American Jew in a wheelchair.

Yeah: “spectacular”. I know it’s got a range of meanings, but that might not’ve been the best word-choice. But “massacre” was pretty appropriate.

Here’s another.

The Block

Just finishing up a pharmaceutical conference down in Baltimore today, before heading home to the palatial VM estates.

I went to a hospitality event at the Maryland Art Place last night, which was fun. Problem was, the directions to the event just consisted of a map, not a “stick to Pratt St. and then turn left” set of directions. So I made an early left, so as to get to Baltimore Ave. and reach the site pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, I had no idea that this would put me on The Block, which is populated entirely of porno joints and strip clubs, and is situated one block over from the police station. The locals were pretty friendly, inviting me into all of their establishments, but I declined their hospitality, even at the offer of “6 to 8 pretty girls”. And then I passed a police officer handcuffing a gentleman on the street corner, shouting, “I have it on tape! Don’t LIE to me AGAIN!”

And I thought, “Maybe there’s a reason they set those crime shows in Baltimore . . .”