Saul Williams has a new album coming out next month! Huzzah! Meantime, check out the AlterNet interview:

Scott Thill: Much of your new album sounds like you made it at three in morning with a drum machine, sequencer and digital recorder and went wherever the muse took you.

Saul Williams: That's exactly what it was. . . .

How did you get involved in drafting the "Pledge of Resistance" for Not In Our Name? It was one of the earliest, most visible protests against this ridiculous war.

I was approached by them soon after 9/11, and I soon realized how important and powerful resistance to the war could become. When I was helping them draft that pledge, it felt as important to me as drafting the pledge of allegiance. I felt like Martha Washington.

If you've never heard or seen Mr. Williams before, go check out the excellent movie Slam, or get his first album and listen very closely to "Penny for a Thought" and "Coded Language".

HalliBush Wars, Inc.

I'm sure you've all heard by now about the Army veteran who is suing Donald Rumsfeld.

The lawsuit asserts the emergency policy instituted in the wake of the September 11 attacks was "invalid" because the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein has been removed from power and "Iraq cannot be considered to pose a threat of terrorist attack upon the United States."

Yeah, what. And speaking of people looking to oust HalliBush Wars, Inc. from office -- how is it the BBC is giving more interesting voter profiles than US media? (Check out the cross-section of Arab-American voters.)

Holy Bloodshed, Batman!

I don't really agree with University College London philosophy professor Ted Honderich when he says that Palestinian terrorism is a "moral right", but I do agree with him that "America is now engaged, as I say, in the principal piece of moral stupidity of this time . . . it is as if the causes of terrorism that are neo-Zionism and Palestine do not exist."

Speaking of Israel/Palestine, check out Henry Siegman in the IHT.

The Palestinian national struggle, and the terrorism resorted to in its name, has created major security problems for Israel. But these security concerns cannot be invoked as a pretext for policies that will bring apartheid rule to the West Bank and Gaza. It is not true that Palestinian violence represents an existential threat to the state of Israel. More to the point, whatever the seriousness of the threat, it can be dealt with by Israel at least as effectively from within Israel's pre-1967 borders as it has under conditions of occupation.

It had been an article of faith with the overwhelming majority of Israelis for a long time that their most vital security interests required them to remain in southern Lebanon. They believe the same thing about their presence on the Golan Heights. But since Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, security along Israel's northern border has improved dramatically, and we now know that Moshe Ya'alon, the Israel Defense Force's chief of staff -- like his predecessors -- does not believe that the Golan Heights are important for Israel's security.

I've never been able to understand how killing militants is supposed to bring peace. I mean, did we go into Michigan and bomb the neighborhoods of the Michigan Militia when Timothy McVeigh committed his act of terrorism? No; we knew that would be countereffective. I guess when the people speak Arabic and look different, we have no choice but to use tanks and cluster bombs.

I Got Class

Man, this school year is going to kick my backside, repeatedly. I went in today from 9-1, and I was wiped out when I got home. Admittedly, I was up until 3 last night playing on Achaea; and a lot of my work in the classroom today was physical stuff (getting bulletin boards ready, etc). But still -- you can tell already that I'm just not able to put as much time into this thing as I'd like to. Oh well.

Hey, while I'm on the subject of me and my writing, lemme give some big ups to the people who leave comments. I make a lot of jokes about how no one probably reads this thing, but I know it reaches some eyeballs. Natch, the only way I know for sure is to see people respond; so it's very gratifying to get that sort of two-way communication. Respect to Ramb and Nate and Sam and Catfish and Kilgore and everyone else.

Other

I know I've been posting a lot of Chavez stuff lately, but make sure you check Medea Benjamin's take. She rocks, as always. (Despite what Jeffrey St. Clair might say.)

And also from AlterNet -- Abby Christopher has penned an important piece about medical personnel denying emergency contraception.

TimeWaster™

Toogle is a profoundly cool and very pointless web toy. It takes your search query, locates the first image it can find, and represents that image as colored text. Check out how well it turns one of my 3D Go images into a work of text-only art.

And check out what it does for East Timor and Madison Code Pink. (Not to mention catfish!)

And how can I resist this one? Or this one? And of course this one and this one and this one. Okay, Eileen's going to have a fit if we don't go for a walk now.

Today I'm listening to: Public Enemy! (Word! rapraprapraprap)