And now I know that the current format won't be maintained for those who don't care for the new one.

It's basically a tarted-up red red red Huffington Post cybertrash-tabloid jumble.

Heaven forfend I mention IKEA, but the new format is reminiscent of the shopping-mall architecture switch from boringly predictable box-shapes to supposedly "upscale" mazes deliberately intended to defeat comprehension.

The theory is that it's better for business if shoppers feel permanently "lost" or disoriented, because that heightens anxiety-- and, as Dubya notoriously recommended, when one is anxious, a proven way to diminish anxiety is to buy stuff.

As the saying goes, the new format is more than a couple of tweaks away from acceptable. Maybe I can just directly bookmark the two or three Salon writers I habitually visit.

I'm sorry that you put so much hard work into the project and came up with such a ghastly result-- which, by the way, is what I expect to tell our Elected Misrepresentatives if they ever finally cough up that No Insurer Left Behind hairball.

• Sad but true, Terry. My thoughts exactly. I won't gush or anything-- I'm not sure that my plaudits improve commenters' cachet.

• No big deal, K., but I didn't see your post linking the WTC7 collapse BBC video and the BBC "response".

Since you're not one to give yourself whiplash by furiously retorting, "So, what?... Now the BBC is 'in on it' too?", I'll venture the opinion that the BBC response is total eyewash.

It boiled down to the polite but supercilious observation that of course the BBC is neither part of a conspiracy nor engaged in any nefarious or untoward conduct; the correspondent was under considerable pressure to coordinate multiple inputs, then digest and relay this information on Live Teevee; the tapes and technical records have turned up missing due to a perfectly straightforward but unknown Merry Mixup*.

I thought there might indeed be some simple, or at least plausible explanation for the crucial timeline issue. For instance, confessing that they used a "green screen" for the background, so that the footage was from an earlier time, etc.

Coincidentally, I saw reporter Ann Louise Bardach on "Democracy Now" the other day discussing narcoterrorist Luis Posada Carriles. Here's another Merry Mixup:

[...] And they decided to close the case, which green-lighted the destruction of five boxes of evidence and files on Luis Posada in the summer of 2003. Agents who worked on it were staggered. It took them twenty years to put this stuff together, in some cases.

I found out about this. I called up the spokesperson, and I said, “I’ve heard that you’ve closed the case and cleaned out the bulky,” which is what it’s called, “and you’ve shredded it.” She says, “Well, that’s routine. We shred everything.” I said, “Can you tell me why you closed this particular case?” And she said, “It was just a routine housecleaning. You know, the bulky was just getting too filled up with storage materials.”

So I said to her, “You know, did it occur to you that instead of making room in the bulky by destroying the evidence and the files of the most famous, notorious figure to ever come through South Florida, that maybe you could have taken some of those carjacking cases from the ’80s that were closed?” And then she said, “Oh.” [...]

* I don't suppose the BBC could have simply posted, "Shit happens".

Anything goes in an end-stage comments thread.

Still-- don't be such a silly ass.

WTC7 Collapse Reported in Advance [link@sig]
_____________________________

This clip is on YouTube; Google "Salomon Brothers Building".

The BBC correspondent in NY discusses the sketchy new information that the Salomon Brothers Building has collapsed, although it's visible in the background-- although her head blocks the view for much of the clip, unintentionally I'm sure.

To my knowledge, it's never been "explained away". Maybe I'm hallucinating it!

Perhaps MENSA members can spot the deception at a glance, but I don't get their newsletter.

Apparently His Holiness is unaware of the admonition that people who live in stained-glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

The fake glasses and beard don't fool me a bit.

This is manifestly a Self-Portrait of the Artist on the cusp of abandoning This Modern World created with such labor, sweat, and blood-- and making a quantum leap to This Brave, New Post-Modern World.

Perplexingly, this "new" world in which truth is as ephemeral as a fart in a windstorm, and memes and factoids play like the deer and the antelope, is amazingly like Lewis Carroll's Wonderland.

The protagonist's mortal exhaustion evokes the finale of "2001: a Space Odyssey", where Dr. David Bowman's is mystically reincarnated as a "Star Child".

I can hardly wait to see what next week's strip brings!

BTW, R. Crumb has just published "The Book of Genesis Illustrated" [click sig]. But AFAIK, the Tibetan Book of the Dead is still up for grabs.

Ain't it the truth?

Remember: you can't straighten a snake by pulling it through a straw.

I remember being "shocked" in a parochial-school geeky way when I learned that Napoleon's artillery used the Sphinx for target practice.

That may be apocryphal, but as a kid I assumed that such behavior was left behind in the Olden Days. Surely some no-nonsense Master Sergeant would put a stop to such idle destruction!

And yet, in some circumstances, "looting" in a theater of war is punishable by summary execution, like desertion. In "Slaughterhouse-Five", Vonnegut writes of poor Edgar Derby being shot for taking possession of a teapot.

I don't think any US troops were executed for pilfering crockery in Iraq. Ah, progress!