NP: Salif Keita, Soro (MP3)

A couple of days ago, the New York Times had a quote from a certain puppetmaster Vice President over in Davos. "If we were a true empire, we would currently preside over a much greater piece of the earth's surface than we do," Cheney said. "That's not the way we operate." What I want to know is, did he have a wistful twinkle in his eye when he said it? Was he implying that we're an altogether different kind of empire?

Speaking of the Times, New Yorkers are so cute when they get all cold and stuff.

And, as if I needed another reason to back my man Wes, I've got one. Not the Journey thing so much as the MTV clip mentioned on the second page. Some of you know that I asked for the new Outkast record for Christmas, on the condition my 70-year old dad asked the clerk surprisingly pointed questions about the band, so this shouldn't come as any surprise.

With the New Hampshire primary underway, I'm wondering why Clark was the only one to actively campaign in that first precinct to vote. The news that he got eight of the dozen and a half votes doesn't amount to much in the overall count, but you figure that's gotta have legs in the media, and could influence coverage in a positive way. I'm coming around to the notion that the Granite State will certainly give one or two candidates a running start into next Tuesday's multi-state effort, but my completely amateur prediction is that no one drops out of the race this week. In a perfect world, nobody drops out until the first week of March, when we've got real data.

Now that I've made the choice to put on the brakes until I get definitive word on my most recent job opportunity, I'm getting a little stir crazy. Although I've got some things I could be doing, like compiling the next CD of tunes to learn for Diver. I bought a few more downloads from RealPlayer today for The Honor Thieves, although the jury is still out on that service. In a related story, you can buy URT songs from iTunes! Cool!