The New Standards are making waves by reinterpreting their favorite songs in a jazz mode. In a kind of Super Group lineup, John Munson of Semisonic fame plays bass and sings, Chan Poling of the Suburbs plays piano and also contributes vocals, and Steve Roehm is on vibraphone.

In reshaping classic, even iconic songs, the New Standards shies away from imitation or mimicry, instead taking a minimalist approach to interpreting the Replacements' "I Will Dare," the Clash's "London Calling" and David Bowie's "All The Young Dudes," among others.

The Minneapolis band's self-titled debut is out now on Tinderbox Music.

NPR : Jazzing Up the Rock: The New Standards

This is always my favorite week of the year to be in China. It’s the time when the China debate goes from the inside to the outside, as the National People’s Congress segues directly into the China Development Forum.

Stephen Roach (from Beijing) | Morgan Stanley

I wrote a Python script to help me visualize my tag intersections. As you can see, computing the weights are a bit kinky, but it works.

The purpose for doing this was to help me see if I was even using multiple tags for my links. As it turns out, I have about 70 intersecting nodes (tags), 20 that are isolated (which are not included in the above visualization). What is neat is that I have approximately 200 edges (intersections). The point? As predicted, I am not much of a combination tagger - instead, I am old-fashioned and use a tag to represent a folder. I would love to compare my del.icio.us usage with others. Mail me an XML of all your links and I'll run it through my script.

Kunal Anand - Blog: Visualizing my del.icio.us tags

The experts say that Iran is six to nine months away from mastering the centrifuge process of enrichment, the key step in a 5- to 10-year process of building a nuclear bomb. Talking to the Iranians at three interlocking levels is the best way to determine whether there is any realistic hope of deflecting them from enrichment or deterring them if they get the bomb -- and what happens if the answer to both is no.

Bush must reshape Ronald Reagan's attitude toward Mikhail Gorbachev: Don't trust, do verify at every step of the way. First, there must be something to verify.

Opening With a Trap Door

Often I find Ebert too commercial, but I agree with him on this point.

I am in that camp of people who wanted "Brokeback Mountain" to win for Best Picture but more than any other film, did not want "Crash" to win. It's not because I felt "Crash" was a spoiler, but merely because since I saw "Crash," I've felt it was contrived, manipulative, self-righteous and preachy.

:: rogerebert.com :: Letters :: For people who don't want to think (xhtml)

Commentator David Weinberger takes blogging -- and blog-reading -- seriously. But he won't read your every word. He couldn't possibly.

NPR : Reading Blogs Is a Time-Consuming Endeavor

Picture a bird, effortlessly adjusting its wings to catch every current of air. Airplanes that could do the same would have many advantages over today's flying machines, including increased fuel efficiency.

Now MIT engineers report they may have found a way for structures -- and materials -- to move in this way, essentially morphing from one shape into another.

MIT makes move toward vehicles that morph - MIT News Office

A coyote roaming through Central Park today got a taste of what it's like to lead the police on a chase in New York City, where the tabloid media and countless other reporters and photographers will chase anything that gives chase.

Elusive Coyote Is Captured in Central Park - New York Times

“That doesn’t sound at all deviant,” you say. “It sounds useful.”

On one level it is, but once you buy into this system you find yourself trapped. It’s like running through town square naked and looking at everyone else through binoculars.

Henry Daily Herald, McDonough, GA - Netflix voyeurs and exhibitionists - Rob Felt

Bush will continue to mouth his optimistic slogans -- he has no choice. But he is now at the mercy of events. A catastrophic, or even significant, downturn in Iraq may strip the last shreds of public support for Bush's ill-fated war, and send his presidency into a downward spiral from which, like the tragedy in Iraq, there may be no escape.

Salon.com | Civil war? What civil war?