You wouldn't think of New York's Knitting Factory club as a venue for a metal show. The times they are a changin'. One result of that change is art metal.

This is potentially great news for those of us who think the fewer nuclear weapons out there, the better: North Korea has agreed to give up all its nuclear programs in exchange for energy and security guaranteees.

A connected Thai entertainment mogul has dropped his attempt to gain control of Matichon, one of Thailand's major daily newspapers.

Bev Oda told the Toronto Star on Friday she'd like to see CBC head Robert Rabinovitch appear before Parliament (which re-opens on Sept. 26) and update a House committee on the lockout.

The CBC won't be covering the swearing-in ceremony of new Governor General Michaelle Jean, thereby defusing the possibility of a CMG picket line -- which the new GG said she wouldn't cross.

If you're a serious fan of martial arts films and you live in T.O., there was exactly one place for you to be Friday night: At Ryerson theatre watching SPL.

Note: It's showing at 6 p.m. Saturday too, if you want to try seeing it on a last-minute basis.

About 200 people have been killed in Iraq in the past two days. Al Qaeda has shifted its target from police recruits to Shiites. The Sunni Islamist terror group wants to provoke a civil war.

Zerby's blog has a great post about a satirical little Flash video about the most important person in the world.

This WorldNet Daily article was fuming about it, but courageously told people how to find it using Google.

Say, did you know if you link to something, it helps its Google ranking? Just a thought.

For more Google-bombing fun, do a search on failure and press "I'm feeling lucky."

Feels like 2003 all over again when stuff like this pops up! :)

A potpourri:

CanadianJournalist.ca: Locked-out CBC workers block satellite truck in Newfoundland, call workers 'scabs'. John Gushue, a locked out CBCer in St. John's, also has a posting on it at his dot-dot-dot blog.

Gushue also has a post rounding up some lockout news. He also makes note of an online petition started calling for an end to the lockout and the heads of CBC senior management.

CBC Unplugged has a post about management playing hardball with not-locked-out employees in Quebec and Moncton who don't want to do the work of their locked-out CMG colleagues.

And finally, Antonia Zerbisias has a big post of lockout stuff.

The Salon blurb: After Katrina, the country no longer believes in Bush the protector. His presidency is ruined.

The University of Missouri is opening a new think tank that it hopes will lead journalism into the digital future and reconnect it with audiences.

PM PM says he doesn't cross picket lines, and wouldn't do so if CBC sets up one at GG-designate Michaelle Jean's forthcoming swearing-in.

How do you keep going when you're a news outlet in a city that had no people to read you or businesses to buy ads? New Orleans is currently a living laboratory for that particular problem.

Byron Calame, the NYT's public editor, reviewed a decade's worth of NYT coverage of New Orleans.

He concluded in a Sept. 11 column that over the past decade, the paper did not draw enough attention to two of the key issues that have emerged since hurricane Katrina: Poverty and the levee system's inadequacies.

Michael Kinsley, the guy who brought us wikitorials, has been let go by the publisher of the Los Angeles Times. He was on the job a year.

The Associated Press will launch a service on Monday called ASAP, aimed directly at those elusive 18-34s. The content will be offered as "articles and 'experiences' in multimedia formats, with audio, video, blogs and wireless text."

Kevin Sites, who left CNN shortly after it told him he couldn't blog, will now do multimedia reports on the world's wars for Yahoo!. It starts Sept. 26.

While only Iraqis can report in some of the most dangerous areas, the U.S. military and Iraqi governments think some of them are covert insurgents.

Michael "heckuva job" Brown, who resigned as director of FEMA on Monday, paints a very negative picture of Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco in an interview with the NYT.

But there are also some hints those higher up the federal food chain let him down in dealing with hurricane Katrina.

My anti-virus software subscription expired, so I renewed it. Now, to fully complete the process, I have to re-register the product. To do that, I have to be connected to the Internet.

The problem is, if I enable Norton Internet Security 2005, it kills my Internet connection. And then the software sends me an accusatory message saying, "we cannot connect with Symantec's servers."

But if I turn you off, then I can connect to the Internet just fine!

Did I mention I hate dealing with software problems?

March of the Penguins is the second-highest grossing documentary in history, and now conservatives are enthusiastically touting it because in their minds, it promotes family values.

The Toronto Star's Antonia Zerbisias and The Globe and Mail's Kate Taylor were inspired to rebut longtime Mulroney lapdog, Sen. Marjory LeBreton, who went after the CBC's news operations on the weekend.

Google now has a way to search blogs (thanks, Kevin).

Here's the FAQ.

Poor, poor Dubya: Not only did hurricane Katrina force him to cut his vacation short, but now he has to tell the American people he accepts responsbility for any federal screw-ups in the response to hurricane Katrina.

The horror! The horror! It truly has to have been one of the worst days of Dubya's life.

Saw this at Zerby's blog. It's worth propagating. This Newsweek story explains how and why Bush was so ill-informed about hurricane Katrina's impact in the disaster's early days.

If you've done any tisk-tisk-ing or issued any weary sighs about the U.S. response to hurricane Katrina and thought how lucky you are to be in Canada, do yourself favour and read Anthony Keller's column from the Sunday Star.

CNN's Anderson Cooper got noticed almost two weeks ago when he ripped a U.S. Senator who was trying to be a good team player and praise the feds while rats were feeding on dead bodies lying in the street.

Michael "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" Brown resigned from FEMA on Monday.

The team player and Republican hack threw himself on a grenade, saying he didn't want to distract from his agency's work.

I'm sure the facts that Dubya's approval numbers are averaging about 42 per cent right now ... and that anger with his administration's response to hurricane Katrina is part of the reason for that ... and that Brown had become a lightning rod of criticism from both Republicans and Democrats alike ... played no role in any of this.

Here's the NYT's take.

Oddly enough, Brown's acting replacement, R. David Paulison, has experience in fighting disasters, not worsening them.

And to continue kicking a mediocre man when he's down, here's Maureen Dowd's take on the whole sad affair.

The NYT wants to start charging to read its columnists online -- for those of us who don't do the dead trees version of the paper.

Read more here, but starting Sept. 19, the NYT wants $50 US per year for TimesSelect.

I love the NYT's columnists, but if the Washington Post or LA Times or Toronto Star isn't charging to read theirs, then I'm sure I can learn to love them too.

The NYT's Paul Krugman writes that FEMA is hardly the only federal U.S. agency where being a Republican campaign worker definitely aids your hireability.

This Washington Post story looks at how wide the blame for the New Orleans catastrophe deserves to be spread.

Washington Post reporter Joel Garreau offers some thoughts on why New Orleans probably won't exist as it did before the flooding.

I am happy to report it seems to definitely be the real deal.

This particular flavour is available at Greg's Ice Cream, located on the southwest corner of the Bloor/Spadina intersection here in Taranna.

The Pentagon is changing the rules to allow commanders to seek Presidential approval for the use of nuclear weapons to prevent a WMD attack on the United States.

Some familiar companies are winning the initial contracts being signed to repair the damage from hurricane Katrina:

If you liked Ong Bak, you won't necessarily wet your pants over Banlieue 13, but you will leave the theatre with a big, sloppy grin on your face.

And as you ride your adrenaline rush out the door, you will exult to yourself: "Man, I just saw some amazing action sequences!"