Yup: Bush has a mounted pistol that Saddam clung to upon capture. Shown to "select visitors", <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=2&u=/nm/20040530/pl_nm/bush_saddam_gun_dc">the president is proud of this particular spoil of war</a>.
New site just launched that is sure to become the google of the blogs: <a href="http://www.blogsnow.com/">blogsnow</a> will track how many blogs are linking to different pages every ten minutes. It searches google, the IMDB, wiki, and the NYTimes.
At present, it is a means of accessing information you might not ordinarily have found your way to. But it has the potential to show what is popular: just click on the popular wiki links being blogged. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukkake">Bukkake</a> was especially revealing to me, since I live here in Japan (and, no, don't believe every kinky thing you here about Japan. sheesh.).
Finally Amazon and Google are leading the net in the right direction: while there are stockpiles of written material on the web, hardly any of it is actually usable in quality research papers. I am specifically referring to citations and endnotes, naturally.
But now Amazon is offering a new service that shows<a href="http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/article.asp?ArtID=6415"> the way of the future.</a>
"You type a name, a phrase, a couple of keywords into the Amazon book search engine, and up pops a list of the books that contain the words you typed in.
Click again on one of the short citations, and you see the actual text pages where the words appear….
Amazon has been careful not to give away the store. They've scanned "only" 120,000 books into their system so far, and they allow you to view only two pages on either side of the keywords. Cleverly, Amazon also doesn't allow you to print the pages where the keywords show up. They're hoping you'll choose to buy the book online instead."
One thing I like about new RSS readers is that they often come bundled with subscriptions I didn't know about or have before.
While trying NewsFan out, I discovered this travel "tricks and tips" page. <a href="http://www.traveltipsandtricks.com/000286.shtml">This one jarred my attention:</a>
"Imagine for one terrifying moment that you are at a large crowded place like an amusement park, or an air show. Imagine that you just turned around in the crowd and your child is missing. Quick, what was s/he wearing? How recent is the picture in your wallet? Quick, seconds count! What was your child wearing when s/he left for school this morning? Times up! How'd you do?"
The writer says she takes a digital picture of her child on her cell phone before entering a crowded place. Something to think about.
Unusually sinister plot emerges from 14 year old mind: using on-line aliases, he deceives a 16 year old boy into thinking that he must kill someone to enter the British secret service. In so doing, the 14 year connives his <em>own</em> murder plot.
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,2763,1227362,00.html?=rss">Bizarre, no?</a>
As the presiding judge in the case says:
"Judge David Maddison, the recorder of Manchester, said: "Skilled writers of fiction would struggle to conjure up a plot such as that which arises here. It's staggering to be dealing with a case that arises out of a 14-year-old boy's invention of false personalities, false relationships and events arranged for his own killing at the hands of a 16-year-old boy who he had met via an internet chatroom.""