"Which area codes?" Post asks

Oh gosh. From the Washington Post:

At this point, fortified by a gulp or three of cabernet, we mustered the nerve to ask some hard questions of Mr. Luda:

Quoting from the lyrics of one of his songs, where he boasts that he's got "ho's in area codes," we inquired as to which area code in the Washington metropolitan area did said ho's reside.

"That," he replied, "is definitely not something I want to have in The Washington Post."

How to pronounce things in Wisconsin

This new website could come in very handy.

now he's a radical!

"Take over your administration building, occupy your university president's office or storm in on the next meeting of your college's board of trustees until they agree to make your schools carbon-neutral." - Thomas Friedman, 4/21/06.

Oh, Tom. It's a stupid column, by the way. It sounds like he's saying that global warming is really kids' fault, not the fault of corporations and governments.

For the reading file

A few days ago I read 'The Israel Lobby', the essay from about a month ago by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt that's been the subject of much talk in academia and over in Europe and Israel and what not (not so much in the mainstream US media, with the notable exception of the Boston Globe).

These guys are two very mainstream/establishment political scientists. Realists. And though there are lots of problems, it is, at least to some extent, a big deal that they're now saying this. It's a good read that I highly recommend if you have a rainy afternoon or whatever. And the responses by Hitchens and Chomsky are cruc. ("CROOSH")

The article as published in the London Review of Books.

The full, slightly longer version of the piece.

Critique by Hitchens.

Critique by Chomsky.

There are also lots of letters in response linked at the bottom of the LRB article, too, and apparently there's tons in the Israeli press..

March Route

(one good march leads to another, as they say)

For A29, UFPJ has just announced the following:

The March for Peace, Justice and Democracy will kick off in Manhattan, just north of Union Square and proceed south along Broadway to Foley Square, where we will hold a Peace and Justice Festival. Please see schedule below:

10:30 am - 12 noon: Assembly along Broadway, north of 18th Street. Contingents will form in the area from 18th Street to 22nd Street, between Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue South. (Details about where particular contingents will be gathering will be posted here soon.)

12 noon: March begins and proceeds south on Broadway. We will turn left (east) on Worth Street and continue into Foley Square.

1 pm - 6 pm: The Peace and Justice Festival will be held at Foley Square from 1 pm to 6 pm. A map of the festival area will be available here soon.

Rally!

After work today I went to the big pro-immigrant rally. What a scene. There were so many people and so much energy! I met up with Joanna and her coworker and a moment later with Aerob. The rest of the crowd more than made up for our -- or at least my -- le tiredness. And we totally stopped the bad legislation in its tracks. For sure.

At Brodway and Leonard -- among other places -- the NYPD was forcing folks to squeeze through a very narrow spot between the metal barricades and the buildings, completely disrupting the march. At some of the intersections the barricades were set so that they could sometimes let cars cross Broadway, but in this case, it was just barricaded on four sides. Jerks.

But look who emerged -- an amazing drumming group! They were like eight leagues above us. They sounded amazing. And they had a trumpet.

those crazy French kids

From the just wanted to double-check our assumptions dept:
According to a report from the field on thenation.com, the American media did, in fact, totally misportray the French protesters.

BTW, misportray is not actually a word. I thought it was. Good to know.

MIT Rules

Caltech's equivalent of the Douglas Cannon is much bigger -- it's two tons, and just huge. But last week it went missing, and showed up on the campus of rival MIT.

A Revelation

"It's like you need sleep every night!" - Joanna

Beer Tasting

At 4th ave tonight, the boys did a blind beer tasting.

In the running:
PBR, High Life, Rolling Rock

Ben: "They're all decent and not too different. But I like #2 slightly less than the others. That's definitely not the Rolling Rock." (#2 turns out to be Rolling Rock.)

Artis: "I know that I like PBR..." (Proceeds to rank the unlabeled glasses. High Life wins, Rolling Rock gets second, and PBR scores last.)

Which of these beers do you prefer, oh readers?? And how confident are you that you'll know what's what in a blind test?