Links posted on March 28, 2008
Some of you may know that daughterofmischief and I have a running bet about whether The People's Republic of China will have free, fair, open elections before the release of this album. Well, the good people at Dr. Pepper have stepped up the margin on this one: If the album is released in 2008, then every American (except for guitarists Slash and Buckethead) will be given a free Dr. Pepper.
Come on, Axl. The soda of victory, laced with methamphetamines, rum, and horse tranqualizers, will taste so sweet.
Jean Lafitte [WP] So while on a wikiwander in Capt. Jack Sparrow's neighborhood, I landed on the page for Cpt. Jean Lafitte. I was passingly familiar with the story, but had never realized how bigger-than-fiction his bio reads. No attempt at a based-on-a-true-story-mostly biopic actioner for this generation? You're telling me Harvey Weinstein and Vinnie Chase couldn't make an artier Pirates of the Carribean out of this kind of source material? [more inside]
I don't know if you guys are completely bored to death with my foreign policy posts, but here's another one. I've become increasingly interested in Russia recently, which has been quietly reasserting it's diplomatic muscle around the world.
Vladimir Putin's switch to becoming Prime Minister of the Duma (Russian Parliament),his replacement as president by his handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, and the transition of the country to what is essentially one-party rule has been pretty well documented. But that's not what I'm talking about today. [more inside]