Freyburg

Gadfly and provocateur Christopher Hitchens has an article in Slate about how some local insurgents in Iraq aren’t taking any more of Zarqawi’s crap. An interesting, if not entirely surprising development, given that Al Queda in Iraq has been bombing fellow Muslims and generally using the strife and nationalistic feelings of the population to their own nefarious ends. Of course the end result is more dead Iraqis, but at least they aren’t succumbing to Bin Laden’s nihilist nonsense.

I thought these guys were called “otaku,” but apparently isolated Japanese nerds have gotten even weirder.

Yup, get your Old West on here. Or, you know, send an email. 🙂

Boing Boing editrix and all around cool chick Xeni Jardin has an article in Slate today about how many Academy Awards screeners are floating around on the Internet. Nice to see somebody inside the film industry enjoys theft and (YAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!) piracy as much as the rest of us unwashed peasants. 🙂

Writer, former cyberpunk and all-around genius Bruce Sterling holds forth on The Well (which incidentally is how I first got on the Internet, way back in the late 80’s.) It’s a great read, but it’s looooooonnng.

My bet is not likely. But Newsweek has an interesting article detailing how, with the rest of the world against Iran and their lunatic president’s nuclear ambitions, Bush has a perfect opportunity to seize the moment and get Iran to fall in line without firing a shot. But let’s be honest here, he probably won’t.

For years, Slashdot has been THE place to go for nerdy news on the interwebs. But recently, Digg and other contenders have come out of nowhere to threaten the dominance of the /. guys, primarily because all the stories (at least on Digg) are submitted by readers and then voted on. Slashdot has a cabal of editors who have a pretty good batting average, but the interactive aspect of Digg means news gets on the site a whole lot faster. At any rate, I read them both, and I’d have to say while Slashdot is slower with the news, the commenters tend to be a little older and less idiotic (of course, I can filter out low-rated comments, so maybe I just don’t see the mouth-breathers.)

Apparently Bremer, the former proconsulof Iraq, has a tome out called “My Year in Iraq,” an “amalgam of spin and sincerity,” according to the NYT. I’m more inclined to read “The Assassins’ Gate” or Robert Fisk’s brick, “The Great War for Civilization,” but it never hurts to read the other guy’s point of view.

Yup, Apple ditched the “power” from Powerbook, though apparently the new Macbook is a speedy little beast. I’m more interested in the new iMacs with Intel chips, since I already have a laptop, and one of those bad boys dual booting OS X and Windows (for games) would be some sweetness. But I can wait until the summer before I take the plunge. Reactions, Mac nerds?

So the big Mac event of the year is tomorrow. What are your predictions, fellow Mac freaks?