Sentential Links #105

105, eh? Just out of curiosity, I wonder what nifty roads might carry the number 105...and this one in Nova Scotia sounds pretty.

Anyway, here are this week's links. Click them, lest they spoil.

:: I’ve been asked to leave Los Angeles. The iPhone has been out for over three days now and I don’t have one yet. In this town that’s unacceptable. (Thankfully, we in Buffalo aren't so militant about such things. I'm sure the iPhone will take off here eventually, but not until Apple figures out a way to make it safe from pizza sauce and chicken-wing grease.)

:: It’s also a fact that this issue was at first denied by such politicians; they said global warming didn’t exist (Inhofe called it a "hoax"). Under relentless pressure from scientists and other reality-based people, these guys have finally admitted that yes, GW exists. Now, of course, they are trying to lay blame anywhere but on the corporations that pay them so handsomely.

:: This just may be the most perfectly Canadian bank robbery of all time.

:: I mean, I'd like to save the planet, too. It's a big issue with me; I think our spotty enviornmentalism and our feet-dragging on global warming are the worst of the problems facing us as denizens of Earth. But it's been over 20 years since Live Aid, and we still think concerts can save the world?

:: I can’t really be the poster child for honest atheism anymore, but I probably never should have been.

:: Therefore, be it known that I am declaring today, June 28, the first annual day of retribution for all that binks, buzzes and jams.

:: Nothing in all art is as painful as unsuccessful originality. (Ah, Carl Nielsen. I need to listen to his symphonies again.)

:: In fact, my very first exposure to the genre was back in 1977, when for some unknown reason the marketing department of 20th Century Fox felt that using misleading imagery on the posters for Star Wars (when it was just Star Wars and none of this "Episode 4" retconning) was a good idea, and so in one poster we got a reasonably accurate depiction of the main characters both in looks/costume and mannerisms, and in the other we got a painting which not only had to cut off Leia's sleeves and collar and scoop the neckline down towards her navel, but also to dislocate her femur in order to make her leg stick sexily out of the newly-slashed side of her dress, and stretch her shinbones like taffy.

:: Art is a product of plying one's craft. That's why someone can look at an overall shitty piece of art and say, "Look at the craftsmanship." (I've never understood the difference between "art" and "craft", except that it always struck me as a handy way for people to denigrate something they didn't like. I ran into this all the time on rec.music.movies: "Miklos Rosza was a great artist, while John Williams is just a very good craftsman!" But anyway.)

:: In the long run, reducing the tolerance for al-Qaeda and likeminded jihadist groups in the Middle East is the only way we'll ever permanently reduce the threat of Islamic terrorism. This — not military action — should be the single most important guiding principle of our foreign policy. Maybe starting in January 2009 it will be. (Amen.)

All for this week.