Belgravia Dispatch marks the one year anniversary of Dick Cheney’s “[the insurgency] is in the last throes” statement with a rundown of casualties over time along with a rundown of the types of things that are happening.

He also has a very good rundown of the state of the war in Iraq. He discusses the perils of both troop withdrawal as well as the perils of having more troops in theater. He remains, of course, a proponent of increasing troop levels in strategic ways. My overall impression from the article could be summed up as “damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” The complexity of the interrelationships between the various groups committing violence in Iraq is daunting for an non-specialist like me. Greg Djerejian, who authors and owns Belgravia Dispatch, on the other hand, was a term CFR member and actually has some foreign service experience. Go read both posts.

Technology Liberation Front has a good article up about how eMusic might represent “The Future of Music.” I found this article via Kareem’s blog, and normally it would just be a headline link here, as it was on reemer.com.

It’s not a headline post because, coincidently, Atrios has been plugging eMusic for a few days and I went ahead and gave it a try because of the 50 free MP3 trial offer. So far, I’ve found some cool Indian-influenced music that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. On the whole, though, I’ve found the whole thing quite daunting. It’s a very big catalog of less-than-well-known music and, because of that, it’s very, very hard to navigate it all. I use the same approach as I do with iTunes, relying on top sales lists, but previewing clips is too complicated on the Mac.

That’s probably the biggest problem I have. The site offers .m3u files (MP3 playlists) for previews. It’s all nicely standards based, but the default behavior on the Mac is to play the .m3u file in iTunes. That means that I have a clutter of random streaming MP3 clips stuck in iTunes that I don’t really want. I tried switching to just using Quicktime for .m3u files, but then it downloads the file to my disk, where I have to double-click it (or the icon in he download center) to play the file. In the end, I stayed with this system, previewing entire albums so I would only have to do it once per album.

I’m open to any suggestions people have with using eMusic on the Mac.

The article is a good read, by the way. You should check it out.

On the heels of Sujal’s HDMI experiment, I wanted to share my experiences buying a backup hard disk, then and now.

1995: I bought a 750MB hard disk (to supplement my 250MB internal drive…an upgrade over the default 120MB) for $350. Approximately $467 per gigabyte.

2006: I bought a 160GB hard disk (to back up data for the three computers in the house) for $80. Exactly $0.50 per gigabyte.

We all know Moore’s inspirational message to his troops at Intel, that something doubles every something. Looks like I overpaid. If the price falls 50% every year for 11 years, I should have paid $0.23 per gigabyte, or $36.80.

But wait: one price hasn’t changed. The external case and power supply. Those always retail for about $50. And indeed…the cost per gigabyte is about $0.20, calculated at today’s prices or yesterday’s prices and Moore’s Something Something.

Recently, my mom purchased a Samsung HL-R5067W. Over the past few months, she was able to get a new Samsung progressive scan DVD player for free or low cost, and this past weekend, I helped her get the unit set up with her TV using the HDMI connection. For some reason, I didn’t notice the included HDMI cable, so we went off to Best Buy to pick up a cable.

Holy freaking expensive… we found the cheapest Monster cable at around $95. The cheapest HDMI cable was $63 for a 4′ cable. That’s over $15 a foot. How crazy is that? These cables cost as much as many DVD players out there. It’s unbelievable.

As HD becomes more popular and HD-DVD or BluRay roll out, the prices will come down, but right now it’s a big disincentive to having HDMI components. Anyone have any ideas on why these cables are so expensive? No computer cable is so costly and I can’t imagine that the home theater equipment needs higher tolerances than a data interconnect.

If you are wondering if you should see the new X-men movie, I would say yes.  Most die hard fans are not wondering and will go see it no matter what.  For those fans, I will say the movie is good, but doesn’t live up to comic series (literally).  There are numerous changes from the comics that are sure to drive a true fan batty.  But, for those that aren’t that familiar with the written works, the movie is entertaining and has more plot development than the previous two.  For what it is worth, my girlfriend, who is not a fan of comic book movies, thought this was the best one of the X-men movies.  But, I will say this: 

If you see the movie, STAY UNTIL THE END OF THE CREDITS.   If you are a true fan and you don’t stay until the end, you will not get your $10 worth. 

Hopefully, this coming week I’ll be attending my first meeting as a volunteer on Ned Lamont’s campaign to replace Joe Lieberman as our junior senator from CT. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to help, or whether I’ll even like being a volunteer, but I’m tired of just writing about these things.

So why this race? After all, it’s simply a primary campaign to replace a Democrat with yet another Democrat. In the great scheme of things, it’s not changing the balance of Congress at all. Well, for one thing, I can actually do something here. This is in my state, and it’s my voice that’s being mangled in Congress. The second reason is that the principle here matters. Respect for the Constitution, not the President, needs to be topmost in a senator’s mind. It’s the other way around for Senator Lieberman.

Sen. Lieberman is too caught up in the appearance of being a non-partisan to actually do his job effectively. He doesn’t champion oversight, routinely sells out constituencies he then uses to boost his campaigns, and generally does little to reflect the views of this rather socially liberal and fiscally moderate state in Congress.

Like Senator McCain, the myth belies the reality. Sen. Lieberman isn’t a centrist. He’s no champion of bipartisanship. He’s simply follows the President around like a lap dog. Rarely has Lieberman stood up to any Presidential policy position that were at odds with his own stated principles or policy positions. That is a disservice to the constituencies back home where Bush’s approval ratings are at a meager 31% (SurveyUSA tracking poll). It’s also a disservice to the nation at large. Anyone who says

It’s time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he’ll be commander-in-chief for three more years. We undermine the president’s credibility at our nation’s peril.

isn’t doing his job. Congress’s job is not “support the President no matter what.” It’s to work with the President and the judiciary, perform their constitutional duties, and, if necessary, provide a check against overreach by other branches. Our job as citizens isn’t to quietly support every policy position by the Republicans or the President. Without reasoned debate and challenges by the minority party, we have no balance in our discourse and no informed decision making by Congress at large.

On the particular issues of Congressional oversight and the Iraq war, I agree with Lamont. His statement on energy independence is almost exactly what I believe. For those reasons, and to get rid of Joe Lieberman, I’m with Ned Lamont in 2006.

If you’re in CT or care about these issues, consider donating to Lamont’s campaign, too!

(Connecticut’s Primary is on August 8th, 2006)

Kareem’s girlfriend (dude, are you two ever going to get married?) recently started her very own food blog called, appropriately, Geneve’s Kitchen. If the photos don’t make you hungry, the recipes and ideas will.

I love the use of photos on her site, by the way. There’s a professional quality to them, and it just makes the whole look of the blog a lot better. Good luck, Geneve and great work so far.

And, a random note… I found Kareem’s post about her blog on Technorati, of all things, as I clicked through the “food” tag on the restaurant review below. Kind of random, and a demonstration of why I always try to tag my posts. Never know what you’ll find.

PS. Those of you who just read and don’t write at a blog, set one up! It’s such a good way to keep in touch and share things you’re passionate about. If you do it for yourself, and not for the audience, it’ll be worth it. If you’re always writing around a particular topic and a decent writer, you might even be able to build a significant audience.

Most people are somewhat aware that the Indian food you get at restaurants represents just a subset of Indian cuisine. Like China or the U.S., different regions of India have different foods. On top of all of that, the food that Indian restaurants serve doesn’t really represent the normal, everyday meals. You probably wouldn’t find meatloaf or fried bread at an American restaurant in India, either. Restaurant Indian food is generally Punjabi (north-central India), southern Indian, and Marathi (around Mumbai) food.

My family comes from Gujarat, a state in northwestern India. While we do actually eat a lot of the same food you find in Indian restaurants, there’s little actual Gujarati food in Indian restaurants. That makes it hard to show Heidi what types of food my mom might make, and it makes for a convenient excuse to go visit Mom for some good food.

My sister may have found a better reason to go visit her in New York: she’s found a restaurant that specializes in Gujarati food. Vatan is an all Gujarati restaurant offering an all-you-can eat prix fixe menu. It is an amazing find with great food, great ambiance, and an excellent staff that makes it very easy to dive in. It’s so good, I’ve been there twice within four days and would happily go again.

The prix fixe setup makes it very easy to find a meal you can enjoy. This is not a buffet, but rather a three course meal that comes in thalis (a platter) for each individual. The thalis consist of a small portion of a number of different dishes. Adventurous eaters can try everything but you should be warned… this is a LOT of food. The selection of appetizers is so good that it’s a test of willpower not to ask for seconds of everything right there.

You can find a menu of all of the dishes on their web site. The most remarkable thing was khichdi and kadhi, a weekly meal growing up for my family. I usually only get that at home, and rarely at that because my mom usually makes something “special” instead. The dal and rice is also very traditional, and a common meal growing up. The menu is entirely vegetarian, by the way, representing the more typical Gujarati diet.

If the food weren’t reason enough to go, they’ve also worked very hard on the decor and ambiance. The restaurant recreates a small village setting inside with fake trees and foliage and a mural complete with a well in the restaurant.

It also has unique seating. At my uncle’s house in India, we used to sit on the floor in the kitchen to eat meals. At Vatan, they’ve created raised booths that simulate sitting on the floor with a slightly raised table. Shoes are left on a small shelf that runs along the outside of the booth. They do have a few tables with more Western style seating.

The only negative aspect of Vatan is the price. The prix fixe menu doesn’t come cheap, running about $24 per person. That price does not include any drinks aside from water. Even with that in mind, Vatan is worth it. You will not leave hungry, and the experience is unique, and the food is amazingly good. It’s not your typical Indian food and it’s not your typical Indian restaurant. That alone makes it a must-try for anyone that loves Indian food.

I’ve modified the new layout some more (sorry, not the colors yet). Posts marked as a link will now show up as collapsed. You can click the plus sign to the left of the headline in order to expand the post and view the excerpt or additional commentary as you want.

I originally wanted those posts to take up very little room, essentially showing up like a Fark or del.icio.us list of links.

I’m also working on a streamlined bookmarklet to post into the site, but I’m running into a few issues that I haven’t decided how to resolve. It’s pretty smooth already with the default bookmarklet, but anything that makes it faster is even better for me. It means more headlines shared, at a minimum.

As always, I’m interested in whatever feedback you have. And, as always, those of reading via RSS should notice nothing.