Think Google isn't broken with respect to weblogs?  Try searching for "Arnold Oui".  Yep, that's me.  Very odd.  Meanwhile, it's all happening...

Stefan Sharkansky: Iraq is safer for some than Washington, D.C.  "In other words, a young black male soldier from Washington DC would have been 36% more likely to die by staying at home than by serving in active duty in the Iraq war, and almost twice as likely to be murdered at home than to be killed in combat."  Wow.  Great point.

Want to know what's really happening in Iraq?  Ask our soldiers.  Here's the story from one returning marine...

Question:  Why do "the media" apparently have a different view?
Answer:  Because they have a different agenda.  Sigh.

I like it: The true meaning of "first class".  Read it and feel good.

Just in case you thought there was any chance I wasn't going to vote to recall Gray Davis, let me assure you I will.  With his pandering vote to give illegal immigrants driver's licenses, he has proved beyond any doubt that he stands for nothing.  I can handle a politician who takes positions I disagree with, but I can't handle a politician who doesn't take any position at all.  What a joke.

Oh, Howard Dean is supporting Davis.  So just in case you thought there was any chance I would vote for support Howard Dean, let me assure you I won't.

Dave Winer: Howard Dean is not the rising tide.  He is a boat.  More like a cork.

This is important news.  There's a new website for URU, the next installment in the Myst saga (Myst, Riven, Exile).  I'm not a gamer, but I love these adventures, and I can't wait.  "It is scheduled to launch for Holiday 2003."  Check out the site, plenty of screen shots.

And in other important news, here's a review of the Treo 600.  "The Treo 600 will be the device to beat, from the integrated PDA/phone perspective."  I want one.  Now.

BW: Tooling Around in Teutonic Technocars.  "My test BMW also had Adaptive Cruise Control, an advanced feature that soon will be standard on luxury cars.  It's similar to conventional cruise control, except that the car "watches" the traffic ahead via sensors.  You not only set your cruising speed but also how far you want to stay behind the cars in front."  Hey, it's "caravan mode".  They did it!  [ part of a series, "21st Century Cars Hit the Road" ]

And here we have the Librarian Action Figure, featuring "push button shushing action".  No, I am not making this up.  But I love it...

Elevator Moods.  Cool,  Check it out!

MyTinyGarden.com.  Some of the best bug closeups ever.  And some great Flash...

From ABCNews: Elephants in the Sky.  Ever wonder how much a cloud weighs?  A little white puffy cumulous weighs about 550 tons!  (or about 100 elephants.)  I bet you could win a bar bet on that one.  In the right bar :)

IBM is running a new series of ads about Linux.  They have a ten year old boy personifying Linux, while all these great and wise people tell him stuff.  So, I watched this ad, and I didn't get it.  I guess it is cool that IBM is promoting Linux, but this doesn't click for me.

Did you see this?  George Hotelling bought a song from the Apple Music Store, then tried to sell it on eBay.  He was trying to see if he truly "owned" the song, but eBay cancelled the auction (they have a policy against selling anything which can be downloaded online).  Fascinating.

I wonder what would have happened if he'd burned it onto a CD, and tried to sell that?

Forbes reports TVs Join the Wireless Grid.  New plasma TVs with build-in WiFi.  Excellent.  I believe broadcast TV is going to follow big music onto the dustbin of history.

CNet chronicles Universal Music's decision to cut their prices.  Prediction: This will increase music store volume numbers by a lot.  But it won't increase revenue...

Of course, this has everything to do with the plummeting volumes of CD sales.  Supply and demand, baby.  The RIAA membership are so very very dead.  First they neglect new distribution channels (online), then they piss off and sue their customers, and then they complain when they have to drop prices to boost sales.  Someday this will be a textbook case of how to destroy a market.

Philip Greenspun comments: Music CDs are dead, why did it take so long?

Meanwhile Sony is planning to launch their own music service.  Makes sense.  Of course, if they only sell Sony music, it won't be as cool as Apple's or BuyMusic's, and if they sell "everything" they'll be helping their competition.  In other words, producers have trouble being distributors.

Also Apropos, Kevin Marks notes DRM destroys value.  "If the labels succeed in making iTMS Windows stricter it will sell fewer songs."  (iTMS = iTunes Music Store.)  Yep.

And the dog that hasn't barked?  Napster.  Their little flash movies are all very exciting, but where's the beef?  They've been dead for three years now.  Last December Roxio bought the Napster brand, but they've done nothing with it.  Then last May Roxio bought Pressplay, and we all thought it would be re-branded as Napster, but not so far...

The Hummer Les Paul guitar.  I wish I was making this up, but I'm not.  Is nothing sacred?  [ via Ottmar Liebert ]

You know I'm a fan of Quicktime VR.  Here's some great pics of Piton de la Fournaise, an erupting volcano.  Way cool.  [ via Xeni Jardin ]

Hey, even Samuel Pepys has a 'blog!  Only 400 years out of date :)

If you're looking for other cool blogs, check out the 50th Carnival of the Vanities.  My pick: Steven Silver didn't think much of the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards.  (Can something jump the shark if it was always crappy?)