The Guardian reports that Iran is planning a summer offensive within Iraq by allying itself with pretty much anyone it can, including Al-Queda, to get American forces out of Iraq. While this news has the whiff of yellowcake, it wouldn’t surprise me if Iran has something up their sleeve. I’ve been waiting for this war’s Tet Offensive, and it looks like we might just be due in a few months.
A very good question, once I’ve asked numerous times in downtown Vancouver, which appears to be full of the rich and indolent. But things aren’t always what they seem, as this article from the San Francisco Chronicle on the “daytime idle” demonstrates.
After a week of meandering discussion to fill time, we’re back with an actual episode to ponder and pontificate about, and so we banter back on forth about 42, Doctor Who’s stab at a sorta-kinda real-time episode. We also branch off into discussion of a couple of upcoming episodes, but stay remarkably on course, given our penchant for digression. (feed, web, direct download)
Dunno why I find the continued examination of the media of “Will he or won’t he” Al Gore fascinating, but I do. The New York Times has another profile on Mr. Gore and his environmental crusade.
Zipping through my RSS feed revealed this little gem about a student in Tokyo who got to help out with a couple of music video shoots. Neat stuff.
William Langewiesche, the author of American Ground (a great book about the clean-up at the World Trade Center site) is back with the Atomic Bazaar, a new book about the shift of nuclear weapons technology from monolithic superstates to non-state actors and loose cannons like Kim Jong Il (but not Saddam.) I’m sure it’ll be great, though I’m too cheap to pick up the hardcover. Meantime, check out the NYT review.
For a guy who professes to be out of politics, Al Gore is getting a lot of media attention. Time devotes a few pages to Gore’s environmental crusade, as well as pointing to the growing chorus of Gore’s friends and advisers who want him to go for the White House again in 2008.
Technology Review asked some designers to list off what they regard as iconic pieces of gear. There’s some nice vintage and new stuff here, enough to make gadgeteers and designers alike drool with appreciation.
Noted lefties The Nation have an interesting article up about “semiwarriors”, the caste of politicos who will do anything in the name of national security, including bending the Constitution to suit their aims, sacrificing civil liberties and keeping the country on a permanent alert status in the name of the “War on Terror.”
With no episode to comment on, we’ve decided to devote this episode to random blather, mumblesuch and fanwankery. Our first couple of takes were felled by the Internet gods, but we managed to squeak out a half hour of conjecture and mockery. Next week, 42! (web, direct download)