Egoplex.com

Four complaints about 'Heroes'

2008-11-18T09:45:00.004-05:00

Four complaints about 'Heroes'

1) Fetish for tiny, barely legal blondes. When three of your core cast members are short blonde girls who look like children, it's clear that someone has serious issues. Hell, in Season One, they even made Clea Duvall into a blonde, which was an unadulterated travesty. Work out your issues in therapy, freaks.

2) Character interaction is like a child playing with dolls. "Hi, I'm Matt!" "Hi, I'm Daphne!" "Do you want to get married?" "Sure!" *mash dolls together making kissy noises*

3) Serial killer with a heart of gold. This is an old soap opera trick, although in soaps, it's usually rapist with a heart of gold. Add nuance to Sylar? Yes, please! Make him into a misunderstood good guy complete with barely legal blonde love interest? Ehhhhh...

4) If season is called "villains," there should be some villains. As of this week, even Petrelli Senior is showing signs of secret goodness. Sylar has gone soft, along with Elle. The escaped convicts from Level Five have thus far been mostly misunderstood. Frankly, the most evil guy in town at this point is Mohinder, the show's actual protagonist. Calling the season "Villains" implies there will be some really detestable baddies. Yes, please!

An outbreak of Plagaria

2008-09-10T15:04:00.002-04:00

An outbreak of Plagaria

Hey guys, while you're falling all over yourselves to pick on Obama for failing to give credit to Tom Toles for writing his lines, allow me to point out that I was the one who broke this story.

Is It Plagiarism If You're Still Going To Vote For Him?

2008-09-07T17:50:00.006-04:00

Is It Plagiarism If You're Still Going To Vote For Him?

Here's the kind of thing you hate to see.

This is Barack Obama speaking in Terre Haute yesterday:

"Maybe what they're saying is, 'Watch out George Bush!' Except for economic policies, and tax policies, and energy policies, and health care policies, and education policies, and Karl Rove style politics. Except for all that, we're really going to bring change to Washington! We're really going to shake things up!"

And this is "John McCain" speaking in a Tom Toles cartoon Friday:

"Watch out, Mr. Bush! With the exception of economic policy, and energy policy and social issues and tax policy and foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments and Rove-style politics, we're coming in to shake things up!"

Dude...

Of course, there's a small chance Obama might have used the line in a previous speech, which would make Toles the plagiarist, but I think that would be even more depressing...

P.S. Don't y'all go plagiarizing this post, now. Credit where it's due...

First review of Google Chrome on the Web! Plus Resolving Proxy Fix

2008-09-02T15:30:00.023-04:00

Review of Google Chrome! First! I win! Plus 'Resolving Proxy' Fix

1) Too slow.

2) Why is it "resolving proxy" every page I click?

Update: I have solved this. Ironically, the thing that was making Chrome slow was Google Web Accelerator. Come ON, guys! YOUR browser should be compatible with YOUR software!

You don't have to uninstall the accelerator. Just turn it off then do the fix linked above.

Update 3: Now that the Web Accelerator is off, I am finding this browser to be rather speedy.

And now the review, which is being updated on an ongoing basis:

A browser is just a browser, to a certain extent. Most features are basically the same from one platform to another, and that is certainly the case here.

* No classic menus. As someone who writes about usability for part of my living, I've seen a lot of cutting-edge applications ditching the classic "File/Edit/View/Tools" menu.

I am not sure I am wild about this development, because familiarity=usability. However, several new applications I have evaluated professionally are adopting the Office 2007 toolbar ribbon as a menu alternative. These applications tend to work because they adhere to good usability standards -- big buttons, with labels, in predictable and familiar locations.

Google Chrome does not feature a ribbon, and that hurts its usability. The buttons are not labeled. For instance, the "Add Favorites" button is a star next to the address bar, which is only labeled in a mouseover tooltip. I had to go searching for it.

By losing the traditional menus, you also lose a key learning tool -- the alt key. When there's no visible menu in an app, such as Windows Media Player, I like the "insurance policy" that I can hit "alt" and the menu comes back to me.

The Options and Control menus are similarly counterintuitive, positioned on the left, without labeling (but also with tooltips). It's OK, it's not a deal breaker, but it's not great either.

Similarly, there's no quick and easy cue to open a new window (although, happily, CTRL-N will do the trick). In most cases where you expect a browser to open a new window, however, you'll get a tab. Tab labeling could be a little more differentiated and visible.

* On the plus side of usability, this browser ruthlessly eliminates a host of controls from IE and Firefox which most users won't miss -- even power users.

* Resource consumption easily outstrips all of the other major browser platforms. This application runs light -- really light -- and given that most users have their Web browser running on a constant basis, that's no small advantage.

* Task Manager. One word -- awesome. A tremendous flaw in IE and Firefox is that you can't identify which window is consuming your system resources. However, I'd like to see the command to open Task Manager more prominently placed, from a usability standpoint (it's under "developer" but it's useful for most daily browser users).

* The dashboard feature, familiar to Safari users, is nice, although not extremely original or distinguished.

* Typing search into the address bar takes a little getting used to, but it's easy enough and frees up real estate once consumed by Google Toolbar.

However, I could use the toolbar for search in IE, and I miss my Google Toolbar buttons for custom search, autofill, etc. I don't see an option to add these features, at least not thus far.

Also, ironically, I now need to add a bookmark (or bookmarks) to get to Google, if I want to do a Books or News search. Previously, I could just click on the toolbar.

Overall, you would expect a Google-created browser to better leverage Google's primary product -- search. From a pure search perspective, all other issues aside, I feel I was better off with Google Toolbar and IE or (even better) Googlebar and Firefox.

* HTML rendering: Page display is remarkably clean and consistent with IE and Firefox, unlike in some of the more outre browsers like Safari and Opera, where various quirks will cause variations in table display, type size and such.

* You can drag some common filetypes into a browser window and read them therein. This is kind of cool, but it's not a universal viewer and I am not sure why I'd want to read text or PDF files in a browser as opposed to their native apps. Doc types that don't load (like MS-Word files) pop up as "downloads" in a bar at the bottom of the page from which they can be invoked. The jury is out on this feature. I mean, sure, why not have it, but on the other hand, why?

* Focus: This is a small gripe, but if you open a dialog on a window (such as blogger's "add link" control) that window commands focus and you can't switch windows until resolving the dialog. This is good usability in principle (dialogs=complete stop), but bad in practice, since I have a habit of opening the dialog then tabbing to another window to grab the link. I can unlearn this habit, but why? The dialog-full-stop principle is adequately honored if you come to a full stop in the window which opened it.

* Tab control: This is pretty standard, but it adds a useful function -- an ability to close all tabs to the right or left of a selected tab, using the context menu. If you surf like I do -- portal pages opening multiple stories of interest -- this is a really fantastic feature. That said, if you're capable of programming this brilliance, why not add a control for "move tab to new window"? UPDATE: Turns out you can drag a tab loose and it becomes a new window. Nice feature, but it still belongs on the context menu.

* Overall, it's damn good for a beta release. I question some of the usability choices, but most of them are either relatively minor or easily overcome with learning. I can see this becoming my primary browser.

Why I Love The Internet

2008-08-29T16:42:00.004-04:00

Why I Love The Internet

Five hours after the official announcement of Sarah Palin as McCain's vice presidential nominee, there are already 1,100 plus sites listed on Google as containing the new word "VPILF."

What's scary is that some of them were created more than a week ago.

Dharma Wants You

2008-08-01T23:18:00.003-04:00

Dharma Wants You

I have to admit it's hard to get worked up about the new Lost ARG (Dharma Wants You) based on the artistic bankruptcy of the last one, but here's hoping.

By the way, any of you fine folks ever read Pattern Recognition? You'll find it spookily relevant.

Anyway, check this out (from the Dharma Wants You site):

As noted by astute Egoplex readers and Lost aficionados a couple posts back, the Orchid Dharma logo is the regular logo inverted (or rather, turned inside out). The logo above is the Orchid logo rotated a couple of notches counterclockwise.

Readers asked me to comment on the i-Ching/yin-yang dynamics in that earlier post. I made a stab at it, but this latest variation suggests to me that they are just screwing around without any particular rhyme or reason (from a Taoist standpoint).

There might be some tricky business going on vis a vis a combination lock-type puzzle, but I can't say with any degree of certainty that there is a metaphysical hook here.

D.C. Madam Investigative Files Through INTELWIRE FOIA

2008-07-08T08:20:00.001-04:00

D.C. Madam Files

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service has released about 40 pages of material under the Freedom of Information Act related to its investigation of Deborah Jean Palfrey, the so-called "D.C. Madam" who died in an apparent suicide earlier this year.

The USPS refused to release information on the D.C. part of the case, citing a FOIA exemption that allows case files to be withheld if there is a "reasonable chance they will interfere with ongoing law enforcement proceedings." According to ABC News and other sources, several well-known and senior government officials were among Palfrey's clients.

However, Palfrey was arrested and convicted as the result of an earlier investigation in California, during the 1990s. Information on that case was released, including copies of checks and correspondence related to Palfrey's California prostitution ring and a fairly graphic affidavit in support of a search warrant, describing informant accounts of what life was like as a prostitute working under Palfrey's direction. Informants who worked as prostitutes for Palfrey said they charged $200 an hour for a regular call, half of which went to Palfrey.

"Palfrey told (the informant) she didn't have to do 'kinky stuff ' like being 'tied up or beaten up', if she didn't want to, but if she did, it would cost the client extra," the affidavit states.

Another informant showed up for a job interview after responding to an ad for an escort service.

The informant "was told by Palfrey that hers was a full service escort service, and then was asked by PALFREY, 'How open minded are you?' Palfrey told (the informant) she would be sent to male clients and her job was to make the men happy and not let the men be disappointed." The second informant became involved in violent encounters while working for Palfrey, many details of which are redacted.

Click here for the files

What Am I Supposed To Do? On Lost...

2008-05-14T02:36:00.002-04:00

Supposed to

At this point, it's pretty clear that much of Lost is concerned with things happening the way they are "supposed to" -- possibly the most repeated phrase on the show.

We know some things were supposed to happen and did happen (I will be short for now):

Desmond was supposed to go to the Island and push the button.

Locke was supposed to find the Pearl hatch.

Some of our heroes were supposed to be on the plane.

Charlie was supposed to die.

We also suspect that some things were supposed to happen, but didn't:

Locke was supposed to come to the Island sooner.

Charlie was supposed to die before reaching the Looking Glass.

Locke was supposed to find the Pearl rather than the Swan.

Eko was supposed to stop John from destroying the Swan.

And we have been told (by sources of varying credibility) that some things are NOT supposed to happen.

The Oceanic Six were not supposed to leave the Island.

Jack is not supposed to raise Aaron.

Aaron is not supposed to be "raised by another."

So what else was supposed to happen? And what wasn't? And if something wasn't supposed to happen, are we seeing the universe "course-correcting" as the show goes on? Methinks if you figure out these questions, you figure out Lost. Here are a few of the more pressing ones:

Was Flight 815 supposed to crash?

Was Christian Shepherd supposed to die?

Who is Aaron supposed to be raised by?

Was Sarah supposed to be cured by Jack?

Finally, who defines "supposed to"? In the case of Aaron, for instance, we've heard a few different things about where he's supposed to be and in whose custody. The Locke hatch saga is quite unclear as well -- Was he supposed to find the Pearl and never the Swan? Was he supposed to save the Swan or damn it? Was he supposed to go to the Island as a boy?

Are we getting conflicting messages about what is supposed to happen?

Are there two sides (or more) issuing these "supposetahs"?

Can we discern a pattern in the supposetahs?

Can we discern a pattern of course-correction in relation to failed supposetahs in what happens on the Island?

Some memorable "supposetahs"...

S1E19

Locke: We didn't find this by accident. We're supposed to...

Boone: Oh, we're supposed to. We're supposed to find this, right? We're supposed to open it, right? Then tell me something, John, if we're supposed to open it, then why the hell haven't we opened it yet?

Locke: I don't know, Boone, but we're supposed to go to this place. We're supposed to find that plane. Will you come with me?

S2E3

Locke: This isn't... this isn't what was supposed to happen!

Jack: What was supposed to happen?

S2E22

Charlie: Well, what about the church? You said we were supposed to be building it together, man.

Mr. Eko: I am supposed to do something different now.

S3E3

Locke: I'm going in there because I'm supposed to go in there.

S3E8

Ms. Hawking: Because it wouldn't matter. Had I warned him about the scaffolding, tomorrow he'd be hit by a taxi. If I warned him about the taxi, he'd fall in the shower and break his neck. The universe, unfortunately, has a way of...course correcting. That man was supposed to die. That was his path. Just as it's your path to go to the island. You don't do it because you choose to, Desmond. You do it because you are supposed to.

S3E17

Desmond: The flashes don't happen exactly how I saw them. The picture changes. I was supposed to let you die, Charlie.

S3E21

Desmond: Maybe I keep seeing you die because...I'm supposed to take your place.

Charlie: You and I both know. You're not supposed to take my place, brother.

S4E5

Desmond: No, this is wrong! I'm not supposed to be...
Desmond: I'm not supposed to be here.
Desmond: I'm not supposed to be here!
Desmond: I'm not supposed to be here! Open this door! Open this door!

Daniel Faraday: No, no, no. Not right now, Desmond. Where are you supposed to be? Where are you in 1996?

The final quotes, I think, bear elaboration. The reason we know Island weirdness is at work is when someone is NOT where they are SUPPOSED TO be, whether it's Walt, Christian, Yemi or a black horse. So supposetahs aren't just action-commands -- and you can see this in the above quotes -- they are also about being where you ought.

Lost: Christian Shepherd Is Alive, Well, Talking, But Not Very Eloquent

2008-04-01T10:45:00.001-04:00

What Can I Possibly Say?

consuming 100 percent of system resources?

2007-12-15T15:16:00.000-05:00

Firefox Resource-Hog: A Solution For Your CPU Usage?

If you're like me -- and I know you are, because you're almost certainly coming here from Google -- you have a problem with Firefox. Or rather Firefox is creating a problem for you by consuming all your Windows XP system resources, eventually hanging up and completely freezing.

The problem was bad in 1.5 and worse in 2.0, in my experience. And Mozilla clearly couldn't give a crap. When you go to their "support" page for this problem, you get the standard help desk line -- it's not our program, YOU are doing something wrong. Denial, denial, denial...

They offer several suggestions. I tried them all, and no luck. Then I went surfing and tried everyone else's solutions. No luck. Finally, I took one of those random stabs in the dark. The fact I am typing this in a Firefox browser is testament to the fact that it works (so far). It's far from perfect, but it's temporarily stopped me from switching to Opera. (For how long, I cannot say.)

The Mozilla help page mentions running programs in compatibility mode. Specifically, it claims that running Firefox in compatibility mode can create excessive CPU consumption. So I checked, but I wasn't running in compatibility mode, so that wasn't the problem.

After exhausting all other possibilities (disabling extensions, browser cache, etc.), I decided to defy the support tips and to run Firefox in compatibility mode for Windows 98. I've occasionally found this tactic useful with other balky apps.

It appears to have worked. So here's how to proceed.

1) Start Firefox in safe mode. Disable all add-ons and reset all user preferences. I have been re-enabling add-ons successfully since the fix, but it's prudent enough to take them out first.

2) Go to the Firefox exe file (or just your start menu short-cut). Right-click on the icon and select properties.

3) You'll see a few tabs. The one you want is "Compatibility." Check the box labeled "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select "Windows 98/Windows Me" from the dropdown box. It will look like this:

4) Restart Firefox.

5) Note: You can try this part first if you want. Type about:config into the address bar of Firefox.

6) Type "browser" in the filter field.

7) Make the following changes (basically you are disabling all disk cache functions):

browser.cache.disk.enable -- set to false

browser.cache.memory.enable -- set to false

browser.sessionstore.enabled -- set to false

browser.sessionstore.resume_from_crash -- set to false

8) Close all Firefox windows and wait for the process to finish of its own accord. You may be tempted to terminate the process from the Task Manager. Don't.

When I followed these steps, I found myself with a reasonably functional Firefox 2.0.0.11. Your results may vary. I've seen plenty of suggested solutions which the author claimed were a sure fix, but which did not work for me.

But for all of you who have been struggling with this, I suspect any hope of a solution is better than what you've been finding so far.

Full disclosure: The cache change will cause page loading to be a bit slower (even on DSL). CPU consumption is still a bit on the high side while actively loading pages (70-80 percent), but nothing like it was before (i.e., Firefox 2.0.0.x was completely unusable before).

After a few hours browsing, I have noted that the CPU usage is creeping upward. Rebooting the browser fixes that, but again, not ideal.

Leave a comment here to let me know whether this worked for you. If nothing else, let us add to the massive amount of Internet rumination on this topic.

Good luck!

(Given the vast pervasiveness of this problem, I will gladly accept tips from any who are moved to do so. God knows, I would have paid one to fix this problem. You can find a donate button on the top right column of my i-Ching page.)

Superman-Doomsday Dead On Arrival

2007-09-22T18:22:00.000-04:00

Superman/Doomsday Dead On Arrival

I found myself grateful for the 99-cent weekend rental sale on Amazon Unbox today, after I decided to check out the first in DC Comics' new line of animated movies, Superman/Doomsday.

It's sure not worth more than 99 cents. In fact, it may be 98 cents overpriced.

The animation was just all right, unimaginative, barely dressier than the current TV show and considerably less inspired than Paul Dini's first run on Batman. But it's the writing that really kills this product dead.

It's billed as an adaptation of the Death and Return of Superman, but that is a flat-out lie. There are two similarities to the comic story -- 1) big ugly monster and 2) Superman dies. Comics readers will recognize nothing else from this movie.

The story is a disaster from start to finish, ineptly adopting Silver Age nonsense like Superman robots (in this case, looking like a refugee from the Nutcracker) and the Man of Steel trying to develop a cure for cancer from his Fortress of Solitude.

All of this is presented in a ham-handed, charmless manner (see Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman if you want to see it done right).

These too-childish bits of ridiculousness are out of place in a movie that's generally unsafe for kids. While the gore level is low, the movie features an astounding number of violent deaths, including children. While not explicit, the relationship between Lois Lane and Superman is unambiguously sexual -- despite the fact that she enters the movie unaware of his real name. (Lois, you ignorant slut!)

James Marsters shows glimmers of promise in his voice performance as Lex Luthor, but never really delivers. The unctuous and menacing Adam Baldwin (whom I loved in Day Break) is woefully miscast as Superman, although he has some nice moments as Superman's evil clone.

What, you don't remember that from the comic? Well, that brings us full circle. The story is a clumsy mashup of half a dozen superhero cliches and a few random elements lifted from Knightfall. I should mention the pacing, although it seems like overkill. It sucks -- enough so to bear mentioning amid all these other complaints.

Too scary and violent for children, too silly and shallow for adults. Maybe an OK fit for extremely undiscriminating teenagers, but I wouldn't bank on it. Let's hope the upcoming adaption of The Judas Contract fares better.

2007-09-12T10:18:00.000-04:00

To Catch To Catch A Predator

Yes, TV news is out of control...

A Distant Tragedy Could Affect Boston Wrestling Community, Chris Benoit Before the Killings, An Icon to Insiders, Drug Deaths Haunt Boston Pro

2007-07-13T13:28:00.000-04:00

Benoit Killings Rattle Boston Wrestling Scene

My story for the Boston Globe on the local impact of the Benoit killings is posted on Boston.com. There are also two sidebars, which I have posted separately. You can get to all three stories -- "A Distant Tragedy Could Affect Boston Wrestling Community," "Chris Benoit--Before the Killings, An Icon to Insiders" and "Drug Deaths Haunt Boston Pro Wrestling Scene" -- through the link below.

Story and sidebars

More About Obscenity

2007-07-12T07:59:00.000-04:00

Director's Cut on Obscenity

I've posted some material on NowPublic that was cut from my story in the Globe earlier this week on a new linguistic study of obscenity. This is the unexpurgated version -- with all the real swear words! Whoohoo!

On a separate note, what do you all think of NowPublic? I've been posting over there for a while. I like the idea in principle -- in practice I get the same or more readers working with one of my established sites like this or Intelwire.

Do you like seeing some of my longer pieces over there? Should I just be working off the Egoplex site in some manner? Or should I re-imagine this site to make it generally easier to sift through the content, including with some kind of interface for a more seriously constructed article vs. a blog post?

I like the individual pieces of Egoplex, but they aren't particularly consistent (which may be more appropriate given the concept of 'egoplex'). I'm not sure I am branding myself in the most effective way (in the marketing sense, not the hot iron sense).

Feel free to post your feedback below.

Coming soon, a linguist's guide to obscenities; Christopher Potts , a UMass Amherst linguist, will analyze obscenities, vulgarities, racial epithets

2007-07-10T20:22:00.000-04:00

The Swearing Study...

My latest science story for the Boston Globe...

The National Science Foundation is paying more than $200,000 for a study whose results may be unprintable.

The grant's title, "Expressive Content and the Semantics of Contexts," doesn't sound exciting, until you figure out what "expressive content" means.

Christopher Potts , a linguist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, will catalog and analyze the use of obscenities, vulgarities, and racial epithets as well as titles and honorifics. All are words or phrases that express emotion, or whose absence can convey an emotion, such as disrespect.

Click here for full story

Televising Revolution in the Middle East

2007-07-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

Middle Eastern TV

I've posted a story over at NowPublic.com on how television is subverively introducing Western values in the Middle East. But there's a twist -- you won't believe which country is producing the most progressive content. If you enjoy the story, please do link it, leave a comment and/or register a vote in its favor.

Read the story

Mandatory Purchase of Healh Care In Massachusetts Is No Solution, And Certainly Not An American One

2007-06-29T10:11:00.000-04:00

Massachusetts So-Called Health Care Solution

As a Massachusetts resident, allow me to say a few words about the state's alleged "health care solution," which is currently going into effect amid fawning media kudos to would-be President Mitt Romney.

The idea behind government in general is that our tax dollars and other resources (like fees) are pooled to promote the general welfare. The argument over exactly what constitutes "general welfare" pretty clearly outlines the difference between the right and left segments of American politics. Health care is as hotly contested as any single issue within this ouvre.

I cannot conceive of how someone comes up with the idea of forcing citizens to purchase a product from a corporation under the penalty of law. And make no mistake, that's exactly what is happening here.

Critics of nationalized healthcare argue that it's "intrusive" for government to simply provide healthcare to the people. But forcing people to purchase healthcare independently is far, far more intrusive than outright socialism. It takes money out of your pocket and puts that money into a vested corporate interest -- the health insurance industry, easily the most bloated and wasteful corporate bureaucracy in existence.

The health insurance industry exists for only one reason -- to perpetuate the profits of the health insurance industry. It ties up trillions of dollars in cash reserves -- money that could be used to create new companies -- and it is responsible for the employment of hundreds of thousands of people (both in the companies and in hospitals) whose sole productivity function is to serve the bureaucratic demands of the health insurance industry itself.

It's an ourobouros of an industry sector, constantly eating its own tail. It ties up and wastes trillions of dollars -- each YEAR -- and only a fraction of that money is actually spent on its purported goal of providing health care to people.

Using the law to force citizens to purchase ANYTHING from a private company is plutocracy, plain and simple. And forcing citizens to support the most devastating waste of resources in human history is just obscene.

Worst of all, this strategy exists solely for the sake of polemic -- so that policymakers don't have to "socialize" medicine.

Instead, they are "capitalizing" the insurance industry at the expense of citizens.

It robs us of a choice far more fundamental than the spurious "provider choice" issues deployed to sink the Clinton Health Plan more than a decade ago. In Massachusetts, it's now illegal "not to buy."

Capitalism works in an environment of maximum freedom, and that most emphatically includes the freedom to opt out. This health care "plan" incorporates the worst elements of socialism and captialism into something less effective than either.

More on the Benoit family tragedy

2007-06-27T16:53:00.000-04:00

More on Benoit

Dan Wahlers on Chris Benoit...

Chris Benoit was one of my heroes, he was someone that I looked up to for his work ethnic, and the way he carried himself. He was such a class act, the kind of guy you wanted to pattern yourself after. There are few wrestlers that I respected and admired more than him. But that illusion was shattered this week. It was shattered into a million pieces. I will never think of Chris Benoit the same way. And that makes me very sad, and hurts me down deep in my heart and soul.

Three lives were ended this week, a brilliant career was forever stained, a wife and mother lost her life, and a 7 year old boy will never get the chance to grow up, and experience all the best that life has to offer. His live brutally snuffed out by his very own father. There are no words in the English language or any other language to express how deeply sad I am about this, and how much I wish this never happened,
and I had been watching Chris Benoit defend the ECW World Title for the first time last night, instead of writing the most heart wrenching, painful column I
have ever written.

WWE Wrestler Chris Benoit Is Dead

2007-06-25T21:28:00.000-04:00

Chris Benoit...

I've reduced this for a time, because I'm working on a story related to the Benoit tragedy. I will post links when available.

U.S. Secretly Met With Egyptian Followers Of Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman From Al Gama'a Islamiyyah

2007-06-14T18:35:00.000-04:00

U.S. Secretly Met With Egyptian Followers Of Omar Abdel-Rahman

Followers of Omar Abdel Rahman made overtures to U.S. diplomats one year before the radical sheikh entered the United States on a visa approved by a CIA officer.

During several meetings with diplomatic officers at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, members of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (The Islamic Group) provided extensive details about the operations of one of Egypt's most notorious terrorist organizations.

Initiated by al-Gama'a in 1989, the meetings were aimed at creating a dialogue with the U.S. in the hopes of eventual, unspecified cooperation. The initiative was based on a perception that the U.S. enjoyed similar cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Less than four years after the approach, an al-Gama'a terror cell led personally by Abdel-Rahman bombed the World Trade Center in New York City.

The meetings are described in secret cables from the U.S. embassy in Cairo, which were declassified and released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request by INTELWIRE.

Click here for full story

April 1989 State Department cable (PDF)

May 1989 State Department cable (PDF)

The 'Death' of Vince McMahon

2007-06-14T08:23:00.000-04:00

The 'Death' of Vince McMahon

In honor of his unlikely, uh, I mean, untimely passing, allow me to link you up with my definitive biography of Vincent Kennedy McMahon via the Rotten Library.

J.M. Berger on Al Jazeera

2007-06-11T07:23:00.000-04:00

J.M. Berger on Al Jazeera

Here's a clip from my al Jazeerah appearance to discuss the 1994 arrest and 2007 assassination of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. English version will be along eventually, but it will probably take a while.

Jericho Saved!

2007-06-07T11:33:00.000-04:00

Nuts Save Jericho!

By now you probably have heard that CBS has decided to renew Jericho after receiving about 20,000 tons of nuts from avid fans. Part of the plan is that CBS will rerun the entire series this summer in the hopes of gaining new viewers and capitalizing on the attention. For the show to continue beyond its seven-epsiode midseason pickup, it will need to improve in the ratings when it returns.

If you haven't checked out the post-apocalyptic show, now is the time. Even if you did check it out, you should revisit it, and here's why.

When the season started, I was interested but cool to the premise and the focus on small characters and their small struggles. After all, this was set against the biggest of backdrops -- a catastrophic nuclear attack on the United States -- and it was hard to me to get fully comfortable with the intimacy of the show. Every week I watched, and every week I told myself, "Well, I'll give it one more week."

Lo and behold, by the end of the season, I was riveted. The smallness is the beauty of the show, and it's slow build is more reminiscent of a novel than the MTV-ADD pacing we've come to expect on television. The characters are gorgeously drawn and the story slowly but surely pulls you in with drama first, and plot mysteries second.

It just requires a little patience -- and an easy patience, at that, because each individual episode is well-drawn, even though the larger story takes hold over time.

Let's show the networks that we are capable of being sophisticated consumers. When Jericho returns to the airwaves, give it a shot. It's summer. What else are you going to be watching? "America's Got Talent?" "The Ex-Wives Club?" "The Age of Love?" (GAH!!!!!)

Lost Body Count: Special Season 3 Finale Edition: Who Lived and Who Died

2007-05-25T08:51:00.001-04:00

Lost Body Count: S3 Finale

The Lost Body Count has updated with obits for everyone from the S3 Finale, and let me tell you, there are many, many, many, leading off with Charlie Pace, then Mikhail (for the THIRD time), the Other redshirts and even old Tom/Zeke.

Enjoy.

Over the hiatus, I'm going to be reworking the page to accomodate the ever growing list of the deceased, and I am planning to add a couple of top-secret new features. They're not especially brilliant, mind you, but they are secret. And I know how you love mysteries.

Jericho: 'Nuts' To CBS

2007-05-21T10:34:00.000-04:00

Jericho: 'Nuts' To CBS

A moment to speak out for a good cause. When Jericho debuted on CBS last year, I was dubious. Each week I tuned in to the post-nuclear-attack drama, and I felt just a little bit disappointed. Yet, each week, I told myself, "I'm giving it one more week."

One more week turned into a whole season, and slight disappointment gave way to intense appreciation. Jericho is television at its best, a serious drama against a not-entirely-fantastic background with great relevance to the world we live in. More to the point, the characters are beautifully subtle, well-drawn and well-performed.

The investment in character paid off as the series reached its first season finale -- the storyline was, on the face of it, not especially compelling. If you read a TV Guide synopsis, you wouldn't have been impressed. But because you care about the people, it worked and spectacularly so. The last episode of the season -- and it seems of the series -- was an edge-of-your-seat thriller with nailbiting tension and an excruciating cliffhanger, made all the more so by the fact that the show has not been renewed for a second season.

All of this, by way of prequel to the following links. It's probably a lost cause at this stage, but if you want to fight for Jericho, you can start with www.jericholives.com and www.jerichorallypoint.com.

UPDATE:

But the most entertaining effort of all can be found here. In the climactic scene of the finale, hero Jake Green paid a homage to a famous WWII story. When asked to surrender by the sheriff of New Bern, he responded with the one-word message: "Nuts!"

Fans have now ordered more than 3,300 pounds of nuts to CBS, and that's just through the centralized order page set up by "NutsOnline" (who knew?). The site's proprietors indicate that something like 500 additional pounds were sent by fans independently.

END UPDATE

The online community is obviously pretty roiled about this cancellation, and with good reason. With all the reality dreck flooding the airwaves, a good, solid drama telling compelling human stories deserves your support.