Pinging stuff I care about.
Blackwater license being revoked in Iraq – Yahoo! News:
“We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,” Khalaf said.
I wonder if Bush will find a way to make sure Blackwater gets back in. If? Maybe “how long it will be” instead.
Clinton unveils mandatory health care insurance plan – CNN.com:
“I’m glad that, today, the architect of the 1993 plan has another care proposal — and if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I’m flattered,” said Edwards, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina. “The lesson Senator Clinton seems to have learned from her experience with health care is, ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’ I learned a very different lesson from decades of fighting powerful interests — you can never join ’em, you just have to beat ’em.”
Edwards’ proposal would cut off health care for the president, Congress and all political appointees in mid 2009, if a universal health care plan for all Americans has not been passed by then.
I’m getting to like this Edwards guy. I mean, he’s taking an old Kucinich plank — that all Americans should get the government-funded single-payer health care that politicians enjoy, and given it a fighting twist.
I still support Kucinich over Edwards but I think Edwards would be better than most of the others. (Except maybe Gravel.)
I’ve fallen in love with this song. It’s the oldest complete musical composition known. (There are older fragments but this is the oldest complete song.) It’s an epitaph on a gravestone, about 2000 years old.
Prefacing the tune are the words: “I am a tombstone, an icon. Seikilos placed me here as an everlasting sign of deathless remembrance.”
The translation Wikipedia gives, which is pretty good as far as my Greek can tell after all these years since school, is:
I first found out about it though on the Amaranth publishing site, which has a really haunting midi of the song.
Via the Wikipedia article I found a good mp3 of the song (including singing), and a youtube video of a fellow performing it on a harp. I tried to learn how to play it on my ukulele (and sing along). After a lot of attempts I never got one without significant mistakes, so I posted one with significant mistakes as a response on youtube. Here ’tis.
Is there any reason this shouldn’t be the top story on all the major networks?
