Canon has announced the lowest-cost interchangeable-lens digital SLR ever, the 6.3 megapixel EOS Digital Rebel. At a price of <$1,000 with a lens, how can you go wrong? If this thing were around when I was buying into digital, I'd be a Canon guy today.

it's been a rough week for BushCorp image managers:

• The US is now thinking might have been fooled by Iraqi 'defectors' --including our presidential favorite, Ahmed Chalabi. I have been questioning for a while the intelligence of putting so much stock in Iraqi exiles and defectors (would WE want US defectors and exiles coming back to run our country after it was overthrown?) Interviews like this show that it's certianly not unthinkable that the defectors did a fair bit of "selling" the need to invade.
• Someone blew the heck out of a very important Shi'ite mosque in Najaf, killing a popular imam/ayatollah. So much for Iraq being a safer place without Qusay/Uday/Saddam/take your pick.
• The death toll in "post major combat" Iraq surpassed the "major combat" toll -- and keeps on growing on almost a daily basis.
• Halliburton is poised to earn far more than reported earlier from its deals with the US government in Iraq -- which means one or more of the following: 1) Cronyism is alive and well, 2) Bush tried to hide it, 3) Bush badly underestimated how much Iraq would cost. None of those are particularly flattering.
• We are having trouble selling our "bail out asses out of Iraq" UN resolution, having been bitten squarely in the ass by our arrogance and unilateralism in launching the war in the first place.
• The Taliban, and possibly Bin Laden, are apparently still alive -- and sending some of our troops home in body bags. Sure, the body counts are in our favor -- but are we really depleting their numbers or breaking their resolve?
• The Israeli-Palestinian road to peace has been literally blown full of holes.
• The EPA has been caught red-handed twice, once withholding important information on the quality of air arouund ground zero and once secretly allowing PCB-polluted land to be sold via a bullshit "re-interpretation of the law" by then-EPA general counsel, Robert Fabricant (talk about an appropriate name) ON THE DAY HE RESIGNED. This blatant, disgusting attempt to circumvent public comment clearly shows the depths to which BushCorp will stoop to get the money flowing through the economy again. The scary-dangerous-sick thing is, it's working.
• Bush's #1 fan network Fox News was basically handed its ass in court after trying to sue Al Franken for infringing on its "fair and balanced" lie, oops, I mean trademark, in his new book's title. Franken's book is now #1 on the New York Time bestseller list. Talk about kicking one's self in the ass!

So how does Bush get away with all this underhanded shit? A big part of it is by maintaining secrecy. Find out all about Bush's use of secrecy here.

This is one of those links you could waste a lot of time exploring: the Random Personal Picture Finder creates a random digital camera photo file name and Googles it. You'll be surprised what comes up.

I found this site while messing it: Marbleholics.

For a good time, call ...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - A Brazilian telephone company is offering a helping hand to Latin lovers who are lacking inspiration with animations of sexual positions based on the Kama Sutra flashed directly to their mobile phones.t

We have started up a Fantasy Hockey league for the 2003-2004 season! Anyone interested in joining should contact Raul.

MONDAY, 8/25/2003, 1:00pm HST by Raul

This is a bit of a surreal Shockwave game -- the goal is to help the little guy save his home "tree." Doesn't sound like much, but it is pretty neat. Try it.

Here's a (literally) eye-opening page that delves into just how deep digital image retouching can go. Be sure to check out the people pictures for some truly scary stuff.

This small game might be worth a few minutes of fun -- Seconds of Madness sends you sliding down a long tunnel on what appears to be a surfboard, and it's your job to dodge the obstacles. Check it out.

So I picked up a Sidekick Stock paintball gun for a game this weekend, and I'm pretty impressed with it. A writeup may be forthcoming. In the meantime, check out this catalog of paintball-related patents. There are some really cool ones in there. I believe this all came about because Smart Parts is trying to establish rights to the electro-pneumatic paintball gun concept.

This is kind of of-the-wall, a funky Flash world with no other purpose than fun.