Friday, June 28, 2002
We were going to have a little section in Protocol called "briefs." This was too good to go to waste:

When it come's to the oldest profession, the job market is not quite so ... tight. Recent restrictions on foreign sex workers in the Netherlands led a Kerkrade clubowner to a government job agency to find replacements for Sexclub Tiffany's 10 vacancies. Harrie Bosch, in the Dutch newspaper De Morgen claims, "They will receive a regular pay of 1,600 euro a month, can go on vacation, can receive sick pay and have a mortgage. For the job, they don't need experience, they will have a medical examination four times a year, they have the right to refuse clients and can choose how to make love."

Tuesday, June 25, 2002
Aay, what about the gondola rides?

Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci Jr. takes credit for the revitalization of his hometown. Now a jury has decided he was also responsible for corruption in the capital of the country's smallest state.

Cianci was convicted Monday of a racketeering conspiracy charge accusing him of masterminding a criminal scheme that took bribes for favors, including tax breaks, jobs and deals on city-owned land.

Tuesday, June 25, 2002
What is this music I like? Cock-post-rock? Like The Champs and Trans Am, Don Cabellero and Polvooo!

Tuesday, June 25, 2002
Remember cell phone snobbery? I'm glad it ended as soundly as that other late-ninties "un-wired" elitism. "No, I dont email. I've never touched a computer," said every indie guy until he discovered makeoutclub. But here you go, the phenomena has ended as 61% of us have walking lines.

Monday, June 24, 2002
On the subject of Dupont Cicle turf wars between straight-girls and gay-guys: There's a good article in the new Blade about "bachelorette" party invasions in the 17th St clubs. Seems they arrive already drunk, scream obnoxiously, don't tip and otherwise act as classless as you can imagine.

Monday, June 24, 2002
One thing over which I am perplexed, is just why are libertarians so vanilla? I wonder, if they are not just a slice of the general public, to whom I am rarely exposed? The "hip" libertarians I know are like DC Talk in the way they are white-white (with a smattering of Asians for variety,) and gleb premeditated observational one-liners with fashionable snideness and irony. Maybe Libertarians aren't DC Talk, but like your average everyday New Yorker. Up on the trends, but not to the beat. I still don't get it. Exempt of course from this generalisation, are the libertarians who are my friends. Say what you will about me, but I've always picked cool friends -- or rather, they've picked me

Monday, June 24, 2002
So the biggest news this week is I will have a vacency in my apartment by August. Spread the word around. That's rent-controlled Dupont Circle real estate

Friday, June 21, 2002
This is a great website. Please visit the FAQ

Friday, June 21, 2002
I met this cool girl Zoe at a party on wednesday. She's got a fun column with the DC IMC. That one is about college student swindling scams, and indeed when we walked back to her place she was ripping off every "College Students, Want to Make $$$?" sign on the way. When I came out to her as a L--, she said that's cool because after all, we share the anti-war, anti-drug war platforms.

Friday, June 21, 2002
As much as I love Sparky's and German soccer players, my plans to watch the game this morning were foiled the minute I stumbled in at 3am. Must have been a good one.

Friday, June 21, 2002
I hate to reference a weblog, but I'm keen on Daniel Pink's just one thing. Free Agent Nation has been on my to-read list for a while, and he's an INTP like me!

Thursday, June 20, 2002
From The Globalist: Is America the New Roman Empire?

The greatest flaw of the Wolfowitzian imperialists is the way they treat diplomacy as an obstacle to U.S. power — rather than as a critical component.

Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Ok, I've posted three drug-related articles in as many days, but when the Feds start hussling Indian reservations, it's dirty.

The harvest was to have begun that very weekend, and they were all looking forward to it. The family planned to dress in full traditional garb, do ceremony to bless the plants and give thanks for the growing season that had resulted in more than 35,000 healthy plants reaching more than 10 feet towards the sun.

"I woke up and tried to come down to the field," he continued. "Federal agents had made a circle around the field but I was in a four-wheel so I just drove around them. When I got close a U.S. Marshall pointed a machine gun at me and said 'Halt' at me three times, real domineering and it kinda scared me.

Tuesday, June 18, 2002
The RIAA has basterdized Audiogalaxy Pitchfork has the scoop:

In an absolutely stunning and unprecedented move in the world of peer-to-peer file-sharing, Audiogalaxy yesterday adopted a 'filter-in' system which requires not only the songwriter, but the music publisher and record company to all provide permission before allowing Audiogalaxy users to swap files. The new system was implemented as part of a settlement with the industry-funded Recording Industry Association of America, which sued Audiogalaxy last month and has pending litigation against file-sharing services Kazaa, Morpheus, and Madster.

The move allows Audiogalaxy to operate indefinitely under the new system, unlike Napster which was shuttered, bankrupted, and bought out by one of the very interests that sued them out of existence in the first place (media giant Bertelsmann). The policy is risky, though-- Audiogalaxy users were greeted yesterday by a field of "X"s (the icon signifying a blocked file) for every search, and it is unclear how many artists and labels will provide Audiogalaxy with the documentation necessary to unblock their albums or files.

Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Old news, but cool news:Steve from Blue's Clues is cutting a record with the Flaming Lips.

Monday, June 17, 2002
From the US News front page, Secrets of the Secret Service:

Many believe that at the root of such problems is a lack of accountability within the Secret Service. A government official familiar with the agency says the service has effectively used its Office of Inspection to sweep problems under the rug, seeking to prevent the inspector general (IG) of the Treasury Department–the service's parent agency–from opening and conducting investigations. In the past, this official says, the service circumvented the IG by classifying misconduct allegations as "management issues," thus keeping problems in-house, or in agency parlance, "in the family."

Monday, June 17, 2002
Time to stop posting on alt.drugs.pot ... This is from the Center for Democracy and Technology's analysis of the FBI's new powers

Online Surfing. This change is intended to allow FBI to search the Internet before they have any indication of criminal conduct. In other words, it authorizes fishing expeditions, plain and simple -- FBI agents spending their days searching the Web to see what turns up -- or more likely, FBI agents setting robots to search the web looking for certain terms. But the guidelines do not seem to limit the type of searches. It is one thing to surf for information about bomb making or child porn, but it is another thing to search for information about Palestinian rights. This change is not limited to terrorist cases..

Sunday, June 16, 2002
"F'shizzle my nizzle," said Snoop Dog at the High Times Stony Awards.