Around the Neighborhood
"There is no benefit in the gifts of a bad man." --Euripides

In protest of the irresponsible, anarchic and crass mass media invasion of this curious and simultaneously boring overkill of the story of Elizabeth Smart's return from the land of the missing, Desultory Turgescence is going to focus today solely on the blogs of others, give props to its peeps, shout-outs, and pop some collars, make efforts to ignore the faux urgence of the news. Whew. I'm exhausted already. Now that I've found the quintessential online rap dictionary all I need is a hip hop thesaurus.

The morning begins with some new intelligence; startling satellite photos courtesy of Grobbo, via Sargasso. Of particular concern was the genetically modified supersoldier.

UrenDagenNachten provides a nice video of Mark Fiore's on preemptive diplomacy.

The Cockeyed Absurdist bemoans the martini fad. The only suggestion I would add is a hot dog martini which would be vodka mixed with beef muscle, curing agents and spices, such as garlic, salt, sugar, ground mustard, nutmeg, coriander and white pepper. A nice Vienna Sausage could be skewered as a garnish and if we were real cretins, we could sell them on the streets of Manhattan from hot dog carts.

Lockhart Steele reports a Howard Dean sighting at Essex and details about the event via Scott Heiferman. I watched Dean on Meet the Press last week and was impressed by alot of his thoughts. Ringing of rationality in particular, speaking on Iraq:

"It matters what we do here for the long-term implications. I have no doubt that if we go to war next week or the week after that we’re going to get rid of Saddam Hussein and have a regime change and that our military will succeed. My concern is what this is going to do to the cooperation and the bilateral institutions and multilateral institutions that we’ve built up in this world for the last 50 years."

Vinod has a compelling review of Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power, although I have to admit a growing fatigue with the entire Hobbesian metaphor for international politics.

Everlasting Blort provides a thoroughly entertaining short film called Hercubush, the Bush who started it all.

Lying Media Bastards wins me over on this corybantic condemnation of CNN. Destroy it indeed, this embassy of The Ministry of Truth!

For a multiples of nine explanation of the Psychic Flash Movie, check out Maud Newton's revealing blurb. All this time, I believed it was John Ashcroft sitting there behind the magical little orb, gleening my final number through some new Patriot Act II contraption. That nettlesome math. Can't live with it, can't live without it.

The complexities of the work of phone sex operators was revealed to me this week via The Great Satan Quarterly.

Lastly, the American Girl in Italy discovered her first Florentine soccer match last week. Of course, she hasn't seen "real" voetbal until she's attended a Dutch match. Nothing like a little post-match excitement to really get the blood flowing.

So, before my head gets dizzy and eyes blur from all the linking, quello è tutto. Hope no one feels "highsided".

If so, take a listen the best Dutch band in Nieuwegein: Spinvis.