Just a quick note-

I'm still keeping this blog, and might even keep updating it, but the sort of thing I've put here in the past is now getting written about in slightly greater detail, with slightly more thought, at www.dansolomon.com. So if you miss seeing this journal updated regularly, there's a new place for you to go.

--d

A French air hostess will become one of Europe's pioneer space tourists after picking a chocolate wrapper out of the rubbish and finding a winning number in a competition to fly to the upper reaches of the earth's atmosphere.

Why did no one tell me there was a golden-ticket contest to win a trip to space? That's the sort of thing I should be well aware of.

An open singer-actors call for the new Julie Taymor musical Spider-Man will be held in Manhattan July 28.

Lion King Tony winner Taymor will direct the new musical, which features a score by Bono and The Edge of U2. No timetable for the musical has been announced.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Dozens of partygoers at an outdoor rave near Moscow last week have lost partial vision after a laser light show burned their retinas, Russian health officials said on Monday.

Moscow city health department officials confirmed 12 cases of laser-blindness at the Central Ophthalmological Clinic, and daily newspaper Kommersant said another 17 were registered at City Hospital 32 in the centre of the capital.

"They all have retinal burns, scarring is visible on them. Loss of vision in individual cases is as high as 80 percent, and regaining it is already impossible," Kommersant quoted a treating ophthalmologist as saying.

LONDON - Their "mouth-melt" taste and geometric shape "not found in nature" means that Pringles must henceforth be struck from the list of snacks that Brits can call "crisps," and, more crucially, that they can tax.

But other strands of media use irony to assert their right to have no position whatsoever. So, you take a cover of FHM, with tits on the front - and it's ironic because it appears to be saying "women are objects", yet of course it isn't saying that, because we're in a postfeminist age. But nor is it saying "women aren't objects", because that would be dated, over-sincere, mawkish even. So, it's effectively saying "women are neither objects, nor non-objects - and here are some tits!"

"I'm not saying what you think I'm saying, but I'm not saying its opposite, either. In fact, I'm not saying anything at all. But I get to keep the tits."

Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father.

“Emily Hussein Nordling,” her entry now reads.

Pennsylvania - A truck full of fire extinguishers and other safety equipment caught fire in Lancaster Township Wednesday afternoon. The Lancaster Township Fire Department was called to 1405 Wabank Road for a vehicle fire at 4:19 p.m.

This is like a Mitch Hedburg joke come to life.

teach the controversy t-shirts for all your nerdy liberal friends (AKA, you).

6. "Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"

15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will

Advocacy groups and some legal experts told Congress on Wednesday that it was unreasonable for federal officials to search the laptops of United States citizens when they re-enter the country from traveling abroad.

Civil rights groups have said certain ethnic groups have been selectively profiled in the searches by Border Patrol agents and customs officials who have the authority to inspect all luggage and cargo brought into the country without obtaining warrants or having probable cause.

We could smugly consider ourselves pure, which we did, but what we were really doing was withdrawing from the struggle to reduce suffering. There wasn't the slightest doubt that a Reagan presidency would inflict more suffering than a Carter presidency. Amid all the other beings on the planet, we were so privileged--so very lucky to be who we were, where we were, when we were--and it was not likely that we, callow know-it-all youth, would ourselves much suffer from the shitrain Reagan would bring. So, in our purity, through our neutrality, we were actually advocating that others who were not us suffer.

This is from an interesting bit on DailyKos about Obama and FISA, and it ties into some things I've been thinking about a lot lately.

COVINA - High school yearbooks celebrate achievement, mark the passing of a year, and in photos, captions and scribbled signatures, capture a time.

But for the nine students of Charter Oak High School's Black Student Union, this year's book might better be left on the shelf.

A yearbook staff student replaced each of their names with fake names - such as "Tay Tay Shaniqua," "Crisphy Nanos" and "Laquan White" - next to the club photo in the school's 2008 Chronicle, according to Superintendent Clint Harwick.

Eight years ago Chiman Rai allegedly paid Mississippi hit men $10,000 to choke and stab his daughter-in law to death in her Union City apartment while her seven-month-old daughter was nearby.

Her offense? She married his son, an Indian.

And she was black.

As the cost of shipping continues to soar along with fuel prices, homegrown manufacturing jobs are making a comeback after decades of decline.

While it once cost $3,000 to ship a container from a city like Shanghai to New York, it now costs $8,000, prompting some businesses to look closer to home for manufacturing needs.

The rise in transportation costs are fueling what some economists are calling "reverse globalization." For instance, DESA, a company that makes heaters to keep football players warm, is moving all its production back to Kentucky after years of having them made in China.

"Cheap labor in China doesn't help you when you gotta pay so much to bring the goods over," says economist Jeff Rubin.

Some local manufacturers have suddenly found themselves in the thick of boom times.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A nearly $15 billion Amtrak bill passed the House Wednesday as lawmakers rallied around an alternative for travelers saddled with soaring gas prices.

The bipartisan bill, which passed by a veto-proof margin of 311-104, would authorize funding for the national passenger railroad over the next five years. Some of the money would go to a program of matching grants to help states set up or expand rail service.

Unlike the Senate version, the House bill includes a requirement for the Department of Transportation to seek proposals from private companies to create a high-speed service that would take travelers from Washington to New York City in two hours or less.