My friend Paul has been drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon for years. According to this article from the New York Times Magazine, Paul was a man ahead of his time. After years of decline, Pabst is making a comeback.

Doug Grow examines the similarities and differences between Howard Dean and Paul Wellstone in this Minneapolis Star Tribune column.

In this Slate article, William Saletan tells the surprising story of John Kerry, comedian.

Danny Goldberg is a music industry executive and a left-wing activist. In his new book "Dispatches From the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit," he argues that one reason Democrats are losing elections is that they have lost touch with American popular culture. He discusses his argument in this Salon interview. (Thanks, Mike!)

Rand Beers was the Bush administration's top anti-terrorism operative until he resigned a few months ago. In this Washington Post article, Beers says he quit because, "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They're making us less secure, not more secure." Beers is now national security adviser to Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign.

In this Boston Globe article, Thomas Powers discusses two questions raised by the failure to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction: "How could America's $30 billion-a-year intelligence industry get things so wrong? And why did the White House persuade itself to go to war on the basis of evidence so flimsy?"

Last week New York Times columnist Tom Friedman argued that the failure to find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq wasn't really important because it wasn't the real reason for the war in Iraq. Now CNN columnist Mark Shields points out some things that Friedman seems to have forgotten: democracy, informed consent, and the President's credibility.

Dan Chiasson reports on the Northeast regional semifinals of the U.S. Air Guitar Championships in this Slate article.

ESPN.com senior writer Rob Neyer has selected his Dream Team for each major league baseball team. The Milwaukee Brewers Dream Team is here. Yount and Molitor were so good that they both get to play two positions.

QTVR panoramas let you see a 360 degree view of a location. Here's a panorama of the Golden Gate from Lands End, San Francisco and here's the view from the summit of Mount Everest. Links to other QTVR panoramas are at the top of each page.

According to this Opinion Journal article by John McDonough, Bob Hope's films, "contain some of the boldest, most inconspicuously avant-garde strokes of postmodern sleight of hand ever seen on the screen."

The Geekmaster defines a geek as, "a person who is talented in an area outside the boundaries of social normality." To find out if you are a geek, take his geektest.

Hendrik Hertzberg compares the Bush Administration's Iraq policy with its domestic policy in this New Yorker article.

Fred Kaplan asks, "Did Iraq really have weapons of mass destruction?" in this Slate article.

Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, asks the question, "What would happen if a bomb wiped out the federal government?" in this article from The Atlantic.

According to the Washington Post, "much of his style and energy came from fury over anti-Semitism and an urge to crush Jewish stereotypes." Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. David Lee Roth.

Dr. David Livingstone and Sir Henry Morton Stanley were two of the best-known explorers of the 19th century. This New Yorker article explains how their reputations have fallen and, in Livingstone's case, risen again.

I saw The Matrix Reloaded this weekend and thought it was OK. I enjoyed some parts, like the freeway chase scene (a combination of The Road Warrior and To Live and Die in L.A.), and didn't enjoy other parts, like most of Morpheus' speeches. Overall, I thought it was somewhere between the rave Andrew O'Hehir gave it in Salon, and the pan David Edelstein gave it in Slate.

This week The Onion interviews a '90s punk who believes today's punk rock is "just a pale, watered-down imitation" of classic 1990s punk rock.

Here's an article from The American Prospect on the danger of new epidemics. According to the article, "The world will likely face numerous global epidemics like SARS -- and far worse ones -- in the near future."

In this Slate article Fred Kaplan examines the story that "before Gulf War II began, U.S. special forces had gone in and bribed Iraqi generals not to fight."

I use Blogenheimer to link to interesting things that I've found on the internet. Unlike me, some bloggers use their blogs as diaries to comment on their personal experiences. This New York Times article discusses the problems faced by these bloggers: "hurt feelings, newly wary friends and relatives, and the occasional inflamed employer."

Here's a whole page of games from a website called Orisinal.

Since we are three years into the 21st Century, Brendan Koerner wonders, "Where are the flying cars?"

Neal Stephenson's new novel, Quicksilver, will be released on September 23. HarperCollins has posted a preview here.

Did opposition to the war in Iraq have any effect on U.S. policy? In this New Yorker article William Finnegan argues that "the protesters had a greater effect on events than today's conventional wisdom recalls," and that the Bush administration is now trying to gain the support of those who opposed the war.

Michael Massing reviews the media coverage of the war in Iraq in this article from the New York Review of Books. He finds that "the BBC maintained a consistent standard of skepticism toward all sides," but, "for the most part, US news organizations gave Americans the war they thought Americans wanted to see."

You've probably heard the idea that an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite amount of time will eventually produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. Some lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth tried this experiment with 6 monkeys and one computer for one month. This BBC article reports their results.

This Slate article compares the sales of classic novels like Pride and Prejudice and War and Peace with the sales of recent best sellers. It finds that, "Measured against a best seller in its first flush, sales of any classic book are piddling, of course. But the overall sales picture resembles the proverbial tortoise-and-hare scenario: As the race goes on, the classics win out."

The life and work of author William Gibson are discussed in this Guardian Unlimited profile.

Here's an article by Thomas Pynchon on George Orwell's 1984.

I saw the movie A Mighty Wind last weekend. Although I didn't like it as much as I liked the "mockumentaries" Waiting for Guffman and This is Spinal Tap, I thought it was funny and worth seeing. Here's the Filthy Critic's review of A Mighty Wind.

Chris Suellentrop discusses the success of The Matrix in this article from Slate.

This review of the book The Earth's Biosphere discusses how little we know about the biosphere. It also examines the consequences of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere and whether the earth will experience another ice age. The review also discusses the life and ideas of the Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky, who was the first scientist to make the biosphere "a central concept unifying the study of the earth with the study of life."

Dragons are part of the mythology of various cultures all over the world. This New York Times article discusses how "cultures that had no contact with one another constructed mythical creatures so remarkably similar."

A few months ago I posted a link to a web site that compared locations in San Francisco used in the 1968 movie Bullitt with how those places look today. Now I have found a web site that shows before and after pictures of several San Francisco locations used in Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo.

I like the new White Stripes album Elephant. I think it lives up to the hype and good reviews. Here's a Slate article on the White Stripes and their new album.

Here's a web page that combines Star Trek geekiness with computer geekiness. It's called "How to make a Starship Enterprise out of an old floppy disk".

This New York Times article examines the revival of the Seattle music scene. The Times finds new life in the city it says was once "the rumbling epicenter of a coffee-fueled grunge nation."

Here are two articles from the New York Times. In the first article, Frank Rich discusses the "brilliance" of The Daily Show. According to Rich, The Daily Show is funny "without being particularly ideological," and "a place to find a smart take on the war that does not abide by the strict guidelines that come with either blind support or apoplectic rejection of "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

The second Times article is on the battle against spam. It discusses strategies used to stop spam, as well as the countermeasures used by the spammers.

Here's an article from the Nation about John Stewart and The Daily Show. Like the Salon article on The Daily Show a few weeks ago, this article discusses the show's humor and politics. Stewart says, "The show is neither Democratic nor Republican but simply seeks to represent the 'politically disappointed'." The Daily Show's ratings are good, for basic cable. According to the article, "More people (4 million) tune in to The Daily Show in a given week than watched Fox news at the height of the war (3.3 million)."

Slate's Fred Kaplan explains what we still don't know about the war in Iraq in Eight Questions About the War.

Here's an article about a man with "Wisconsinaphobia". The phobia and associated severe back pain were triggered by "anything related to Wisconsin - sports scores on television, license plates and business names, for instance - and anything that had to do with public utilities."

Here are two articles on the war in Iraq from the Washington Post. The first article discusses how "what ended as a military victory that toppled the Iraqi government in 21 days was filled with moments of uncertainty, miscues and unexpected successes for U.S. forces." The second article tells the story of one member of Saddam's Fedayeen.

How did the United States win the war in Iraq? In this article from Slate, Fred Kaplan explains how the U.S. military has changed and improved since the last Gulf War in 1991. These changes include "a new war-fighting doctrine, advanced digital technology, and a less parochial culture."

How many of you remember Norm Coleman? Norm won the Senate election last November in Minnesota after his opponent, Paul Wellstone, died in an airplane crash. Last week Norm told the Washington newspaper Roll Call "To be very blunt and God watch over Paul's soul, I am a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone. Just about on every issue." (The link is to an AP story. I would link to the original story, but it costs $200 a year to access the Roll Call site.)

Norm was surprised that anyone was offended by that statement, and "tried to put his remarks in context, saying he was making the point that he was close to President Bush, while Wellstone 'was never with the president.'"

When that didn't work, Coleman said "I apologize without equivocation. . . . It was wrong."

All this controversy has made Al Franken ponder the other 1%.

John Stewart has always been funny, but lately his Daily Show has been particularly good. Here's an article from Salon about John Stewart and the Daily Show.

Sight and Sound magazine’s once-a decade list of the best films ever made was released late last year. It was based on lists of films submitted by movie critics and directors. The top 10, including movies like Citizen Kane and Battleship Potemkin, did not include any movies made in the last 30 years. But according to this article from the Boston Globe, film students have their own ideas about what should be considered classic films.

In this New York Post column, former Army officer Ralph Peters examines the war in Iraq and concludes that "The troops are winning impressively - despite Secretary Rumsfeld's micromanagement."

In this article from Haaretz, Israeli military officers and historian Martin van Creveld discuss the media coverage of the war in Iraq. They agree that because of the high level of disinformation, "nobody knows what is really happening in Iraq." As Van Creveld says, "Everyone is lying about everything all the time, and it is difficult to say what is happening. I've stopped listening. All the pictures shown on TV are color pieces which have no significance."

Gregg Easterbrook is writing a series of daily dispatches about the war in Iraq. This dispatch is about the dispute between Rumsfeld and the Army generals over planning the war. In this dispatch Easterbrook discusses the deaths of Iraqi combatants and Iraq's incredibly weak tactical position.

Here is a New York Times article about the Marquette University basketball team. Marquette has reached the NCAA Final Four for the first time since Al McGuire led the team to the championship in 1977. The article is ok, but I posted this link because to the right of the article is what may be the World's Greatest Sports Team Photo. (Be sure to click on "Enlarge this Image".)

This New Yorker article by Seymour Hersch discusses how Donald Rumsfeld overruled senior Pentagon planners and reduced the number of American ground troops for the war in Iraq. According to several of Hersch's sources, "Rumsfeld simply failed to anticipate the consequences of protracted warfare."

Here are some weblogs that provide news on the war in Iraq. As I've mentioned before, The Agonist is a good source for news on the war. Intel Dump and The Command Post follow the military campaign, while Talking Points Memo focuses on the diplomatic and political aspects of the war.

Why did we go to war with Iraq? According to Joshua Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

"This war isn't really about Iraq or deposing Saddam or even eliminating his WMD, though each of those are important benefits along the way. Nor is it something so mundane as a 'war for oil.' The leading architects of this war in and out of the administration see this war, and have pursued it, as an opening blow in a far broader war against political Islam. They see it as the first in a series of wars and near-wars which will lead eventually to the overthrow of most of the current governments in the Middle East, the establishment of western-oriented democracies throughout the Arab world, and the destruction of nothing less than the political world of Islamic fundamentalism."

You can read a short discussion of these ideas on this Talking Points Memo post, or a longer discussion in this article from the Washington Monthly.

Mark Bowden discusses the upcoming battle for Baghdad in this New York Times Op-Ed column. Michael Tomasky explains why the war with Iraq is not a quagmire in this article from the American Prospect.

In this New York Times column, Paul Krugman explains what connects pro-war rallies, Clear Channel Communications, and the Bush administration.

Several months ago I linked to an article about people who explore the tunnels under Moscow. Now, here's an article about a Japanese journalist who thinks he's found evidence of secret tunnels under Tokyo.

The best coverage I've seen of the war in Iraq is on the weblog The Agonist. For example, here is the Agonist's list of questions the media is not asking.

Each year the Village Voice asks a few hundred American music critics to submit their lists of top albums and singles of the year. These lists are then combined into the Village Voice's Pazz and Jop poll. According to the poll, 2002's best album was Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The top 40 albums are listed here.

The Village Voice's Robert Christgau, the "Dean of American Music Critics", writes an introductory essay here, and the Washington Post's music critic, David Segal, makes fun of Christgau's essay here.

Slate has a page of links to many of the best internet sites that provide news about the war in Iraq.

A few years ago my father discovered steel drum music. He loved the music so much that he began building his own steel drums and started 7 steel drum bands in Mayville, Wisconsin. (Surprisingly, Mayville had not had a steel drum band before 1992.) They have recorded 2 tapes and a CD and have performed all over Wisconsin, in Florida, and on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. For more information, go to the Mayville Steel Drums website.

Here's a weblog written by Kevin Sites, who is reporting from Iraq for CNN. His blog is a "first-person account of a solo journalist's life on the front lines of war."

Here's something you don't see every day. It's a story from the New York Times about a talking fish.

The story begins:

"And so it came to pass that a talking carp, shouting in Hebrew, shattered the calm of the New Square Fish Market and created what many here are calling a miracle."

Are you thinking about trying a new look for spring? Why not try a hat of meat?

Here's a fun online game. You are a spider trying to catch and eat flying bugs. Watch out for the fireflies.

I pretty much gave up on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the year they inducted Billy Joel but rejected the Velvet Underground. However, this year the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted an impressive group of musicians including the Clash, the Police, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, and AC/DC. Read an article about the induction ceremony here.

In this New Yorker article Hendrik Hertzberg discusses the diplomatic catastrophe being caused by the upcoming war with Iraq.

I recently discovered the British comedy The Office on the cable channel BBC America. The show is a funny mock documentary about office workers at a paper supply company. Here's The Office's official home page and reviews from the Washington Post, Slate, and USA Today. The show is on Thursdays at 9:20 Central time on BBC America.

Global warming is causing the world's mountain glaciers to melt at a rate of about 90 cubic kilometers per year. This melting is making new archaeological and scientific discoveries possible as this article from the Boston Globe explains.

Should the American intelligence community be held accountable for failing to predict the events of September 11, 2001? If so, what changes should be made to American intelligence? In this New Yorker article Malcolm Gladwell discusses these questions by examining previous intelligence failures and subsequent reforms.

Here's a story from last week's Onion that I found particularly funny. It's called "Man has Derogatory Nickname for Every Neighboring Town".

According to the International Chamber of Commerce, 271 ships were attacked by pirates and another 20 ships were hijacked during the first 9 months of 2002. The following ICC maps show where the attacks occurred near Africa, Asia, and South America.

In October or November the Chinese plan to launch a Shenzhou 5 rocket carrying up to three people into space. This Boston Globe article discusses the ramifications of China becoming the third spacefaring nation.

Here's a website about an Englishman named Mil and his German girlfriend Margaret. The site is called Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About. Some examples:

The way one should cut a Kiwi Fruit in half (along its length or across the middle).

First Born's name (Jonathan). Then, when that was settled...

How to pronounce First Born's name.

Margret walked through the living room on Friday as I was watching 'Band Of Brothers'. Absently, she asked, 'Is this "Killing Private Ryan"?'

Neal Pollack thinks the problem with the threat of terrorism and the upcoming war with Iraq is that they are causing a lot of bad writing. Pollack writes in this article from the Stranger that, "Nobody gives a shit what anti-war or pro-war writers think. Really. So shut up. That goes double for poets. Shut the hell up, poets. Everybody just shut up."

Later in the article Pollack calms down a bit and writes, "On both sides of the Iraq war "debate," writers are straining. They want to be seers, prophets, and tellers of eternal truths. They think they're dropping wisdom for the ages. But they're not. They just sound foolish. From any important historical circumstance, only a few pieces of genuine literary art emerge. In this current situation, I would argue for two: the Onion's special issue immediately following September 11, and William Langewiesche's book about reclaiming Ground Zero."

In this year's State of the Union address, President Bush proposed spending $1.2 billion over the next five years to research the production of hydrogen as a replacement for gasoline in automobiles. In this New York Times column, Nicholas Kristoff test drives a prototype hydrogen-powered car and considers what fuel cell technology could mean for the U.S. However, in this New Republic article, Gregg Easterbrook explains the difficulties in producing hydrogen fuel.

You can now have your DNA scanned for 130 common genetic mutations, including those associated with colon cancer, melanoma, and Alzheimer's disease. After having his genome scanned, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote this column about DNA testing and its implications for the future.

Previously I have linked to reviews of foreign versions of American science fiction films such as the Turkish Star Trek and the Italian Star Wars. The Brazilians have also been "inspired" by American films. Here's a review of Os Trapalhões na Guerra Dos Planetas, the Brazilian Star Wars.

The most common sleep disorders, or parasomnias, are sleepwalking and night terrors. Other less common parasomnias cause sleeping people to eat or impersonate animals. As this New York Times Magazine article explains, scientists who study these disorders have developed new theories of what the brain does while sleeping.

The search engine Google makes it easy to do research on anyone. But is this easy access to information always a good thing? This Boston Globe Magazine article discusses the implications of Google's information access revolution.

Here are links to information on the Shuttle disaster. The new weblog called Shuttle Lost was created to follow this story. The blog Scripting News also has many links to Shuttle news.

Here's a long Gregg Easterbrook article from the April 1980 Washington Monthly on the space shuttle's safety problems. It was written one year before Columbia's first launch in 1981. Easterbrook argues that the Shuttle should be replaced in this new Time.com article.

Bill Belichick, head coach of the New England Patriots, was the winning coach of last year's Super Bowl. He has some advice for the winning coach of this year's Super Bowl in O.K., Champ, Now Comes the Hard Part.

The Kabul-ki Dance is an article from the Atlantic Monthly, by Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down." It describes the air war over Afghanistan, focusing on the men and women of the 391st Fighter Squadron.

Manhattan Timeformations is a 3-D computer map of the development of Manhattan through time. It was created by Brian McGrath, a professor of urban design at Columbia University. You can watch the city develop in Transparent New York, or fly up 5th Avenue in the Perspectival Fly-Through.

ESPN surveyed more than 34,000 sports fans to find out how their favorite team ranks in eight categories. Then they compared these findings to rank the professional sports franchises from the NFL, NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball. They found that the Green Bay Packers are the Best Franchise in Sports. For the full rankings of all the teams and the categories used to rank the teams, click here.

Here are two articles on politics and science fiction television shows from the internet magazine Bad Subjects. In an article called The Sci-Fi Anti-Dupe, Walter R. Jacobs III discusses how he used episodes of the X-Files to teach college students about "the operation of hegemony in America". In the second article, Megan Shaw Prelinger explains How I was Politically Educated by 'The Prisoner' .

Here's a fun, interactive flash animation program called flyguy.

Jason Gross of the online music magazine Perfect Sound Forever lists his 25 Favorite Music Articles from 2002. His favorite article of the year is Life and Death on the Late Show, a review of Warren Zevon's farewell performance on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Why are there no nationally syndicated liberal talk radio hosts? The New York Times ponders that question here. Randi Rhodes is a liberal talk radio host whose show is only heard in Palm Beach County, Florida. In this interview, she explains why she can't get syndicated nationally.

At the end of each year, Google releases its "Year-End Google Zeitgeist," a ranking of the previous year's top search queries based on gaining or declining popularity. 2002's top gaining query was Spiderman, while the top falling query was Nostradamus. Google also includes lists of the most queried men, women, athletes, movies, and several other categories. View all the lists here.

Here's a Boston Globe article comparing the 2002 google lists with 2001.

A few weeks ago I mentioned the Turkish version of Star Trek . It turns out the Italians have also "borrowed" ideas from American science fiction movies. Here's a review of Star Crash, the Italian Star Wars.

Several fiction writers have their own weblogs. William Gibson discusses themes in his books and his new novel Pattern Recognition on his blog. Neil Gaiman writes about his life and work on his Journal. Bruce Sterling posts links to interesting web sites and articles on his blog called Schism Matrix.

The Straight Dope is a column written by Cecil Adams that appears in the Chicago Reader and other newspapers across the country. Adams answers questions on any subject, from "Who was the first person to say 'Elvis has left the building'?", to "What are the nine eskimo words for snow?" For a list of all the questions Adams has answered, click here.

Has Bigfoot left the building?

As I noted a few weeks ago, the first Bigfoot footprints were a prank created by Ray Wallace in 1958. However, this announcement by Wallace's family has not deterred "Bigfoot experts" who still believe in the Sasquatch, as explained in this New York Times article.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- Brett Favre is a national treasure.

And here's Favre himself on the QB mojo.

Just before Christmas, Joe Strummer died of a heart attack at age 50. Here is an obituary from the Guardian and a rememberance from Billy Bragg. Here is an article on Strummer from the Washington Post, and a rememberance written by someone who knew him before he formed the Clash.

Bigfoot has left the Building

The Seattle Times reports that Ray Wallace died on November 26th. According to Wallace's family members, he orchestrated the prank that created Bigfoot in 1958. He had asked a friend to carve 16-inch-long feet from alder-wood. Then he and his brother Wilbur slipped them on and created the first Bigfoot footprints as a prank. Wallace continued to milk the prank for years with films and photos he supposedly captured of the creature in the wild. Read the story here.

This Sunday's New York Times Book Review includes a review of 6 new graphic novels. The review is written by Nick Hornby, author of “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy.” You can read the review here.

Turkish filmmakers have acquired the habit of stealing American films and TV series and remaking them with additional characters and "their own unique set of production values." For example, in Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda, better known as the Turkish Star Trek, Kaptan Kirk, Mr. Spak, and Omer face the menace of Profosor Krater, his assistant Nancy, and a Tarzan robot. Here's a review of the Turkish Star Trek from The Wave.

For more Turkish cinema, here are reviews of the Turkish:

Wizard of Oz,

Star Wars, and

E.T.