NEW HITCH: Hitch on the n-word. He's a little obtuse this time, I think he's arguing in part for keeping the n-word a bad word because otherwise we wouldn't understand Mark Twain. He also makes the distinction between the n-word and nigga, the former an epithet, the latter adopted ironically by hiphop types yet still banned on the radio. Neat.

MORE ANTHRAX: American Samizdat also has the link to this little-blogged New Scientist piece on who sent the anthrax around and killed that National Enquirer editor and that nurse in New York City and those postal workers. Their analysis is it was an inside job, due to the strains that were used being available at only a few places. Someone working at the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases is a good possibility:

One more clue points to someone who worked at USAMRIID itself. A US marine base got a letter in late September, after the anthrax letters were posted but before Stevens was diagnosed, calling an Egyptian-born scientist, Ayaad Assaad, a bioterrorist.

Assaad was laid off by USAMRIID in 1997, and was harassed while he worked there. He was cleared of the bioterrorist charge. Barbara Rosenberg, a bioweapons expert for the Federation of American Scientists, suspects the letter was the real attacker's attempt to frame Assaad by capitalising on anti-Muslim feeling after 11 September. It revealed an insider's familiarity with USAMRIID.

The attacker also masqueraded, unconvincingly, as a Muslim in the anthrax letters themselves. This could be a clue to his motivations. If he wished to scale up US military action against Iraq, he almost succeeded-many in Washington tried hard to see Saddam Hussein's hand in the attacks.

If he wished merely to make the US pour billions into biodefence, he did succeed. And as a US bioweapons expert, he might already be reaping the increased funding and prestige that now goes with the job.

Actual conspiracy theory stuff here.

HISTORY: The American Samizdat legion --just because they're eeeeevil-- dredge up this article from our idiot past on how to tell Japanese from Chinese people. Except the article doesn't use the word Japanese, obviously. By the way, why are they called American Samizdat? Are they spreading the American intelligence like their fellow samizdatists do for libertarianism?

CURLING: The US women lost, but they can still play for a medal today.

SHORT TRACK: Is losing its charm for me after the guy who was across the finish line first was disqualified because Ohno drew the foul. It looked terrible on television because the foul was not obvious and the crowd started booing when it looked like the Korean guy won. But then a voice came over the loudspeaker and gave Ohno the gold. It was very WWF. And NBC couldn't be bothered to put on the women's 3000 meter relay, which is supposed to be the most roller derby-like of the short track events. At least they're putting on all the hockey games.

GOOGLEWHACKING: Is it a fair whack if one of the words is pig Latin? Probably not.

HOLY CRUD: Belarus beats Sweden. The winning goal went in off the goalie's head. Garsh.

KEN LAYNE: Has picked up on the Tom Tomorrow blog. (If you go there now there's a Dubya pinup.) Ken makes the Tomorrow/Rall comparison: "Dan Perkins (aka Tom Tomorrow) takes on a lot of the same targets as Ted Rall, but Perkins' cartoons are funny." S'funny, I think back in the day when the Comics Journal interviewed one of those two he (whichever one it was) said people often got the two of them confused, probably because they appear in the same places (free alt weeklies) and have a similar spare, nuance-via-repetition style. Ken also says, regarding Rall: "A cartoon should be funny." I'm probably in the minority here (and I've said this before) but I think Rall is funny sometimes --the one where he gets run over by Art Spiegelman's SUV is hilarious. For me the "cartoon should be funny" criticism applies to Lynda Barry, whom some people absolutely love but I've never been able to get into because I never thought her stuff was that....funny. For good non-funny comics check out Palestine, the amazing journey into the mind of a geek called Mail-Order Bride and everything Harvey Pekar ever did.

THE GREAT WHITE NONTHREATENING NORTH: Yes, Wurtzel is nuts, she's made a career off that. But here's why she thought she could express herself:

Wurtzel acknowledges she'd never dare say such things in the U.S., noting, "You can't tell people this. I'm talking to you because you're Canadian."

Which reminds me of this recent post by Olympic blogger b-may:

A Canadian skater kept approaching the stairs up to the ice, only to be told that, for security purposes, we had to stop everyone, even if we knew them:
"I'm not a security threat: I'm Canadian"

The Can-Am consensus appears to be: Canadians? They wouldn't hurt a fly. Is there another country whose national identity is based on being non-threatening? Well, probably.

FAKE CURRENCY WATCH: Redsugar Muse has the link to the Harry Potter money converter. It's a totally literal conversion based on the UPC on the Harry Potter books and unreflective of any actual virtual economy like that of EverQuest.

IF I EVER BECOME THE UNABLOGGER: The site will be called Instapoondit.com. Get it? GET IT? I mean, it took me years to get the "male plane" joke in Three Amigos....

SPEAKING OF PUCK HOG: He links to this Faceoff.com piece on the Columbus Blue Jackets, who are making money in the face of the NHL having a crappy product.

BY THE WAY: Thanks to Charles for the kind words on my thing on that Peter Lawler thing. In a later post he reminds us all of the existence of his wife's sports blog, which is sadly rarely updated. Which is a shame, the world needs more sports blogs; I love Puck Hog and Sportsfilter, but could always read more.

HEY: I'm back and I actually read the Charles Murtaugh invasion of National Review. Murtaugh on cloned kids, as any clone would have to be at some point:

A cloned child, made rather than begotten, is a pet: His or her "breed" picked out for its "unique characteristics" just as a border collie is chosen for its intelligence and a poodle because it doesn't shed much hair.

Our children do not live for our pleasure. They are not pets, and we are not their masters. In addition to warming the hearts of their owners, cloned pets may serve as living, breathing reminders that the bonds of family life are not simply psychological leashes.

Glenn Reynolds promises revenge on Charles for these transgressions --wait, no, he just said he'd rebut them mildly. For my own take on this, I think Charles' points are sort of leading me to wonder what kind of parents are going to be the ones who choose cloning for their reproductive option. I mean, they're either going to be high-profile adventurer-tycoon types (like the father in Beggars In Spain) or people really emotionally stuck on their own genome --both types not what you'd call ideal parents, if you have an ideal for parents. To say the same thing a different way: it'll be your traditional techmonkey early adopters --the laserdisc buyers of reproductive tech-- and people really caught on a memory of someone they love or once loved. An odd set of people creating a set of people who have to be raised by the odd set of people. But hey, nobody ever said technology was going to eliminate the creation of new freaks --Brave New World dystopic visions or not.

An aside: Brave New World is the most tossed-around book that I have never read. That or 1984, but I've read 1984, clocks striking thirteen and all that. But Brave New World is a term comprehensible outside of its origins at this point, like lilliputian or something, so I don't feel that bad about using it in a sentence. (Why do you say Orwellian but not Huxleyan? Maybe because there's more than one Huxley.) I should probably stop proclaiming my own ignorance and just read the stupid thing.

I, BLOGGIUS: First, Vehrs. Then, Layne. And now ---Murtaugh.

TEE HEE: Hlatky on Wurtzel.

SPEAKING OF MY ADOLESCENCE: Also via Fark is this story of Hasbro --my favorite toy company of my Rhode Island youth-- trying to steal some kid's domain name. The writer, John Hawkins, compares Hasbro to the mafia for trying to bully this kid out of his dinobot.org address. Jerks.

FA FA FA --I THINK: Globe And Mail story on a new security scanner that acts like you wished those X-ray specs in the Johnson-Smith catalog worked:

ABC's TechTV recently reported that one system being studied is a holographic scanner capable of producing 3D, computer-generated, fully nude images of people who pass through the device.

The report said a circular Holographic Imaging System has been in development at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Kennewick, Wash., since 1989. The FAA is considering the scanner as a next-generation replacement for magnetic scanners now used in U.S. airports.

Although it can't produce a skeletal image the way an X-ray does, the scanner would produce images that would leave little to the imagination.

While effective, the technology raises major privacy concerns. Even at a low resolution, an operator can see not only concealed weapons but also the entire surface of the naked body, according to TechTV's report. It is safe to assume that most people would object to a virtual strip-search every time they travelled on an airplane.

Via Fark. All my adolescent fantasies are coming true. Except the one involving Deborah Norville. Unless I'm flying with her. Never mind.

FLIT: Bruce is still following the troops in Afghanistan, you see, and he links this New York Times piece to prove it. We bombed Afghanistan again but not for the usual reasons: "The strikes appeared to differ from previous American bombing raids in Afghanistan because, according to warlords in the region, they were aimed at controlling clashes among militia forces, and not at destroying the Taliban or Al Qaeda, the focus of American attacks since the first bombing raids on Oct. 7." Which leads Bruce to comment: "A little known fact of wars in Afghanistan: the big defeats never come during the initial invasion. They always come during prolonged periods of using foreign military resources to prop up domestic regimes." As Bruce says, "ominous."

DAZE READER: Has picked up on the interblog porn debate. Go there and scroll down, it's there.