Yesterday, there was a jazz street musician near the 61c who was pretty good. It was nice (but surprisingly surreal) hearing the sound of a Sax echoing from all of the buildings of Squirrel Hill - it sounded a bit like they were additional instruments.

Some plans are like hedged bets.. Indecision abounds, and honesty becomes a muddy concept.

Newslike substances:

• Sarkozy, who seems to have consolidated power in the French Assembly, is holding peace talks in France to attempt to prevent Lebanon from continuing to disintegrate. Stirring controversy, he invited Hezbollah, noting that excluding them when they're such a major faction in the mix would make a solution impossible. I suspect this is one of those can't-win situations though - so long as they exist in Lebanon, peace will probably be impossible and undesirable (barring expulsion of secularists, christians, and other factions they'll never accept), and regional stability will remain poor (as they're devoted to the destruction of Israel and the toppling of local secular governments). To whatever extent democracy is a good idea, it relies on the actors and populance having views that are within a certain range of each other and at least a moderate amount of a commitment to "play by the game". I don't think that describes Lebanon. To study: Was the Syrian occupation of Lebanon good or poor for regional stability and/or societal progress?
• Colin Powell calls for closure of the Guantamano Bay Military Prison, noting its effect on the image of the United States abroad. On a vaguely similar topic, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that U.S. Citizens cannot be held without being charged in such facilities.
• Hamas takes big steps to eliminate Fatah. Article Quote: In one incident, Hamas gunmen burned down the house of a leader of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, prompting him to vow: "A house for a house and blood for blood. I swear to God I will kill every Hamas person, a civilian or military."
• Southwestern Pakistan pushes for independence?
• I am amused at things like this where people decide to stop paying taxes and have the government show up at their door. These people also have a blog...
• To secure a majority in India's Parliament, the Congress party may be forced to accept a Communist Vice President.
• Giuliani sent out an email through the Jerusalem Post confirming that his foreign policy is not particularly thoughtful, asking for money for his campaign. I'm not sure if this is on the web anywhere, so here you go
• Also reaching me through email but fortunately online as well, POG's style of involvement in radical acts leads to predictable confusion. Radical leftist groups have for a long time limited their liability (in theory, at least) for some of "their" actions by having subgroups/affiliates do them so that if they're caught, they (in theory) won't take the group down with them. As I understand, this doesn't always work in the courts. The outrage over the engineered (or at least natural) confusion is kind of cute.

• Safari (Apple's bastardised version of Konqueror) was released for Windows.
• Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2

The webcomics smile today (NSFW).

I had a bit of "poetry" floating through my head last night as I was starting to get to sleep, but I told myself that it'd still be there in the morning. WRONG! It's funny how different one's personality/interests/drives can be shaped early in the day versus later..