The soundtrack from O Brother, Where Art Thou? just won the Grammy for album of the year. Chalk a big one up for American roots music.

Whoops, now some music industry talking head is delivering a lecture on the evil and depravity of music downloads. He was quietly booed until he said that three students they asked to download as much music as they could in two days downloaded 6,000 songs. That drew some cheers. Music piracy is a problem that could be solved (maybe) by some creative thinking on the part of the bloodsuckers at the major labels — chastising the customers isn’t going to do it, guys.

National Geographic has an interview with Robert Young Pelton with his first hand account from Qala Jangi, and accompanying pictures.

Combatant Letter 2002 is the official site for the Israeli reserve troops who refuse to serve beyond the 1967 borders of Israel (in other words, in the occupied territories).

Poll: Muslims call U.S. ‘ruthless, arrogant’. Earlier in the day, this story mentioned that over 60% of those surveyed believed that Arabs did not commit the 9/11 attacks, but that detail has been excised from the article. Your guess is as good as mine as to why.

If you want the full data set that was collected, it can be yours for the low, low price of $9,500.

It’s turn back the clock day at the White House: the President encourages us to abstain from sex, get married, and buy American cars.

Declan McCullagh has a fine article on the current controversy brewing at ICANN. The President on ICANN wants to get rid of public participation, ramp up the budget, and turn the whole thing over to corporations and governments to run. What a surprise. The big reason why people (technical people especially) hate to see things get formalized is that as soon as you put someone in charge, they want to build a big bureaucracy and grab control of everything they can get their hands on.

Google Olympics logos: collect them all.

It’s literally impossible to overestimate the depravity of human beings. A British aid charity has discovered that workers for more than 40 aid groups (and possibly UN peacekeepers as well) have been demanding sex from children in exchange for aid services.

Ever wonder what President Bush’s first reaction was upon learning that a plane had hit the World Trade Center? Well, wonder no more:

Thank you, Jordan. Well, Jordan, you’re not going to believe what state I was in when I heard about the terrorist attack. I was in Florida. And my Chief of Staff, Andy Card — actually, I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works. I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower — the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there’s one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident.

(Emphasis added.)

Updated thanks to reader feedback. A reader sent along this link to a story about blood donations following the 9/11 attacks. Very little of the blood that was donated actually went to help the victims of the attack, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. The good news is that blood donations tripled and only 1 to 2 percent more than normal had to be destroyed, so it seems to have all been put to good use.