7/18/01 - Lockout redux? The NBA and the Player's Association suspend free-agent signing due to an unforeseen snag in the salary cap increase.

Greenspan hints at cut #7. But, after six cuts, I doubt a seventh is going to do the trick. The market is operating like a band of itinerant junkies these days - after every interest rate cut, the resulting market rebound gets shorter and smaller.

In related news, Paul Krugman examines America's bizarre Keynesian nationalism.

In defense of campaign finance reform, McCain takes a page from the Hammer.

Hmmm...I wonder if she was reading any weblogs.

Sigh. Guess who's back?

7/16/01 - Bob Dylan returns(!) with Love and Theft, his follow-up to Time Out of Mind. Due out Sept. 11.

Look, ma, no Gleek! The Justice League, the most recent DC property to be rejuvenated by the team of Dini & Timm, will air Mondays at 8:30 next fall on the Cartoon Network. Just in time for MNF.

Ordered a Kyocera Smartphone online as my only phone for the NYC years on Friday. I expect to be happy as a clam when it arrives.

Knicks picked up Clarence Weatherspoon. Ho-hum. I don't really think another undersized power forward is going to get it done.

Michael Crowley of TNR recounts the day campaign finance died in the House.

An LA Times article suggests the unthinkable: Should MDMA (Ecstasy) be used medicinally to treat depression and trauma-related neuroses? Berkeley might need some after this move. He's clearly not liking the sudden proliferation of cardboard boxes in the apartment.

7/13/01 - Pat to the Magic, Oak to the Bulls...sigh. My old Knicks are scattered to the winds.

Do you recall what was revealed?

The Road Rage dogkiller gets the book thrown at him, by Judge Kevin J. Murphy, no less. Glad to see my peeps put this asshole behind bars.

Damn, damn, damn. The House uses arcane procedure to bury the Shays-Meehan bill, with some help from the CBC. I'm leaving this wretched hive of scum and villainy at just the right time - the stench of the sweat of money-addicted pols pervading this place is just too infuriating.

By the way, who the hell is Dick Armey to call anything or anybody "uniformed and arrogant?" Isn't being uninformed and arrogant that rat bastard's M.O.?

Speaking of rat bastards, Karl Rove gets entangled in the homophobic Salvation Army issue noted here last update. Naturally, DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe wants hearings on the subject. While that'd certainly be the Republican thing to do, I'm with Daschle - someone's gotta stop the culture of investigation surrounding the Capitol, and it's damn sure not going to be the GOP.

Beijing wins the Olympics, putting off any massively stupid and destructive armed conflicts between the East and West for at least another seven years. Even considering China's horrible human rights record, I do think this was the right call. The best palliative for the West's problems with China right now are more light, more time, and more money - all three will work to corrode the power of the current ruling elite.

TNR calls for Condit's head. Step down or not, I just wish this freak show of a missing persons case would get off the front page until the police find some answers. Probably too much to ask for, though.

Giuliani appears to be winning the war against NYC's superclubs, with Twilo down for the count and Limelight and the Tunnel on the ropes. Please - the Tunnel in particular is a New York institution.

Computer Motion announces my friend (and Dish colleague) Danny's surgical robot enhancements, which he's been working on for the past year or so. Nice job, hoss.

Sony releases the teaser for Spiderman, so permit me to exercise my fanboy creds and geek out here for a bit. It doesn't give me the fear and loathing like the last Potter trailer did, but I do have some issues with it. A web between the Twin Towers? That's way too large-scale for Spidey, the working man's hero. The last robber should have left out the front door and found all of his boys webbed to the side of the bank, and everyone's favorite neighborhood webcrawler hanging upside down inches from his face. Now that's Spiderman for you. This is gimmicky. That being said, though, Spidey looks darn good, particularly after repeated viewings.

7/10/01 - The Salvation Army enlists the White House in their crusade to keep out gays. Hmmm...looks like I'll have to find something new to do with my old clothing.

Neglected to mention this in the earlier update, but I picked up the Rhode Island quarter in the Hartford/Springfield airport (and had to spend the rest of my trip making sure I didn't spend it.) Thirteen colonies out of the way...

The Knicks come to a seven year, $100 million agreement with Allan Houston, meaning we've effectively dropped out of the Cwebb sweepstakes. Allan's a great player, but he doesn't solve out big man problems.

Speaking of big man problems, Sir Charles gets ever closer to returning to the TNT set with EJ and the Jet.

Unlike their Senate colleagues, both sides of the House have decided to restrict campaign finance debate to one day. And, unfortunately, it looks like some of McCain's House troops may mutiny. C'mon, guys, you've passed it before.

According to a recent study, Republicans are three times as likely as Dems to experience horrible nightmares. Veddy interesting...as my brother noted, it's probably has something to do with all the repression. We also have a bit of a causation problem here - do Republican have more nightmares, or do more nightmares create Republicans?

With Stephanie Zacharek and Charles Taylor on the payroll, Salon has far and away the worst movie review staff of any major publication I know. But I did agree with Ms. Zacharek on Haley Jo Osment's performance in AI despite myself.

Behind the scenes, it was all falling apart...Between this and the Sopranos bust, it's been a bad week for kids named AJ. Can the Behind the Music be far behind?

Attended a wedding and HVL97 reunion last weekend in lovely western Massachusetts. My friend and former 2-seat Bill Evans wedded Susanna Mlynarczyk, his longtime paramour since college, in a rustic and historic New England town church in Plainfield, Ma. A good time was had by all, even in the reprehensibly overpriced HoJo's we called home for the past few days. Congrats and best wishes to Bill and Susanna Evans, and I look forward to seeing you - and everyone else who attended - again in the very near future.

Also caught Depeche Mode at Merriweather Post last Thursday. Not their best show I've seen, mainly due to all the new material, but good nonetheless.

7/4/01 - In the life imitating art dept., A.J. Soprano gets busted.

Found some intriguing stuff while researching court shows for the Press book this morning. Judge Wapner's Animal Court (Who were the ad wizards that came up with that one?) have a few sample cases to consider, while over at Divorce Court you can currently watch the case of the Action Figure Arsonist, where a disgruntled wife set fire to her husband's $2000 Star Wars collection. Scary stuff.

In a loosely related vein, it sounds like sci-fi author David Brin (The Postman, Startide Rising) might be down to burn some Star Wars collections himself.

And, only a hop-skip-jump in legal credibility away from the court shows these days, the Supreme Court gets taken apart by a number of new books on Bush v. Gore.

Happy Independence Day to the fellow Americans out there. Also, you might've missed it, but apparently July 3 was Ghost in the Machine Day. Thanks to Riley Dog, Wood S Lot, and Ned Blog for pointing it out.

Only a month away from the move to the city now, and the ball's definitely starting to roll...

6/29/01 - Cinescape returns, now with deep linking.

Haven't mentioned the second Harry Potter trailer around here yet, 'cause it looks just awful. The film reeks of Chris Columbus even more than I had feared, and what's with the ultra-fake looking exterior shots? Ian Hart as Quirrell and Alan Rickman as Snape might be fun, but otherwise I'm taking this off the list of movies I had any hope for. Oh well, I suppose I should be content that the Rings trilogy is in good hands with Peter Jackson.

David Plotz assesses Larry Summers, the new president of Harvard.

In a piece on David McCullogh's Adams biography, TNR's Sean Wilentz cites Richard Hofstadter to chronicle the current decline in popular history.

Courtney Love goes Yoko. If she's not on the recording and Grohl and Novoselic are, I can't see how she should have any right to claim it.

Bad idea jeans. If you're having a truly terrible day at the office, can you think of anything worse than a clown getting up in your grill on the ride home?

And, speaking of bad ideas, David Duchovny as Superman? He'd have to spend at least nine months in the gym first.

R.I.P. Jack Lemmon 1925-2001. With John Lee Hooker and Carroll O'Connor, the celebrity trifecta rule sadly holds true for another cycle.

Kidd for Marbury?! What an amazingly dumb trade for Phoenix. And, with that and the J-dub switch, premium point guards are flying all over the place. No respect for the floor leaders up in here.

Celebrity sighting: Today was a lousy day, for a lot of reasons which I won't go in to here. But, a ray of sunshine on this past Thursday was walking down 13th St. in Washington to meet a friend and inadvertently stumbling on the filming of Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, a sci-fi piece with Tom Cruise. As I was walking past all the trailers, I saw a guy who looked remarkably like Max Von Sydow. I said, "Wow, Max Von Sydow, you're an amazing actor." And he looked genuinely happy to see someone recognize him on the street and said, "Thank you, young man." I tried to convey my excitement at meeting M. Von Sydow to some of the folks sitting around waiting for Cruise, but they didn't know who I was talking about, particularly since I could only speak to his sci-fi/fantasy oeuvre (The Seventh Seal? The old priest in The Exorcist? Dune? Flash Gordon? Judge Dredd?). Ah well, it was a definitely a nice few seconds anyways.

6/27/01 - As Odette, Ms. Murphy was perfect, her body stretched to the utmost, a model of clarity and phrasing. Her Odile enlarged on this streamlined glamour with a fire-and-ice aloofness that visibly aroused her Siegfried. She has always excelled in multiple turns, and her technical security allowed her movement to flow out of the choreography's many pirouettes. My little sis gets grand reviews in her New York debut in the Swan Lake lead. You go, girl.

Bad news for my productivity levels - Day of Defeat 1.3 could be out any day now.

Will Dubya end corporate welfare as we know it? Sheah.

Shareef to the Hawks? Marbury to the Clips? On the eve of the draft, the trades start a-percolating.

Washington Post columnist Marjorie Williams tools on twenty-somethings whining about their "quarterlife crisis" (I prefer the term pre-life crisis, myself.) In a semi-related story, her husband Timothy Noah explains why boomers like Memento. Ok, but why did I like Memento? For some reason I can't remember...

And speaking of failing memory in the elderly, what's up with William F. Buckley's spate of plagiarism? Pretty questionable.

"I was so blinded by my partisan tunnel vision and my tortured desire to make it in the movement that I believed my own propaganda." The Leftification of once-conservative hatchetman and "cog in the Republican sleaze machine" David Brock continues with his announcement that he lied about Clarence Thomas's porno past in his Anita Hill book. Interesting...unfortunately, Brock pretty much has no credibility at this point.

6/26/01 - A taste of things to come...the NBA Draft, an oasis of basketball in this sweltering baseball desert that is summertime, hits Wednesday.

During my week-long absence, this Spiderman teaser poster was released. Ah lahk it a lawt.

Word up. The chances of me safely crossing the street in NYC just got higher.

Payback's a bitch, isn't it, Cheney? The new Adminstrations meets the Congressional culture of investigation that created boondoggles out of Whitewater, Travelgate, and sundry other Clinton "scandals."

In a surprising decision that alcoholics sometimes refer to as a moment of clarity, the Supreme Court upholds party spending limits. 5-4 of course, with Thomas, Rehnquist, and Scalia dissenting. Money ain't speech...it's not rocket science, people.

And, in a case that hits even closer to home for yours truly, the Court decides to protect freelance writers' Internet copyright. Bad for my research biz, good for my writing biz.

Obviously, I've missed another week. Might as well and be honest and say that, right now, this weblog hasn't been the biggest priority. It doesn't mean I'm quitting, quite yet. (In fact, having written that last sentence, now I feel like posting more.) I'm in a transitional phase from now until August, when I start at Columbia. So, since I'm in the process of molting for the next month or so from DC life back to the rigors of academia, I haven't really felt like scouring the minutiae of daily life. Thinking more big picture for the moment. Of course, this mindset won't last, but while it does, there's a good bet Ghost in the Machine will continue to be intermittent. Sorry, y'all.