TOO MANY STARS, NOT ENOUGH EYES How Fametracker does it, I don't know. For that matter, I'm not even sure *why* they do it. But you can get your gluey fingers all around Hollywood here.

SPACE le petit hiboux says it better than I can. It's not over between us, but there are going to be days where we probably won't speak.

internet, we need to talk. i know you've been a little confused lately, maybe you've felt a little shut out. i didn't mean to. internet, i love what we have. i love that there's a little place for me here, that i have a little corner where i get to fuss with fonts and waste paid working hours and dabble in the color wheel. i love everything about you, internet, even the haters. i love all my webby friends, and how witty and charming and supportive you all are. internet, this past year has been awesome. you're great. seriously, baby.

but i've been seeing a bunch of other people, internet. i've been thinking about you less and less these days. i gotta be honest with you, internet, because i think you deserve it. i've been all around town behind your back. i've had fun, and there have been whole days where i haven't thought about you. i think its important i tell you, internet, who and what i've been seeing behind your back. maybe, you'll understand.

so here's the thing. i know how you love my little stories, and my rants, and my little blips of life. so how's this, internet - when i have something to say, i'm totally gonna tell you first. i swear. but let me spread these here arms out a little for a while. let me hug life a little, instead of hugging you. let me let summer, be summer. with all its ups and downs. with new love. with law school plans. with foolish dreams and hot sweaty nights. with friends, and brunches, and baseball games. chances are, internet, you'll hear about all this. just ... in a different way. and perhaps... not as often.

is that okay, internet? can we still be friends, sugarhoneypie? because baby, you are still one fine little internet.

i just need a little stretching room.

PLAYING FAVORITES Regardless of your views of the war in Iraq, it's important to look at the role the media has played and continues to play in public perspectives on Iraq. Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) just completed a study of on-camera sources quoted by the major television networks about the Iraqi crisis and conflict. It's no surprise that the sources skew in some specific directions.

More than two-thirds (267 out of 393) of the guests featured were from the United States. Of the U.S. guests, a striking 75 percent (199) were either current or former government or military officials. Only one of the official U.S. sources-- Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.)-- expressed skepticism or opposition to the war. Even this was couched in vague terms: "Once we get in there how are we going to get out, what’s the loss for American troops are going to be, how long we're going to be stationed there, what’s the cost is going to be," said Kennedy on NBC Nightly News (2/5/03).

KNOCK KNOCK David Rees' "knock knock" jokes gain momentum in this special, sad, funny issue of Get Your War On:

Knock knock!

Who's there?

Syria!

Syria who?

Seriously, would somone please tackle Donald Rumsfeld and lock his ass up until our "Countries destroyed - to - Countries rebuilt" ratio is closer to 1?

SALAM GOES GLOBAL Salam Pax (not his real name) has been the Internet King of Baghdad with his "Dear_Raed" web diary. He was unveiled on Slate by Peter Maass, who was startled to discover that his own interpreter was the mysterious Salam, and now Salam Pax is writing a column for the UK's Guardian.

BABIES GO TO THE BIRDS A new study reinforces the idea that human babies learn to vocalize similarly to baby birds, but goes another step to demonstrate that a mother's physical cues -- smiling and touching -- reinforce a child's vocal development as much as imitation.

LOVE HURTS Perusing Found Magazine online is a sometimes event for me, and I recently wandered back into the Find of the Week archives. Jessica's really got her work cut out for her, if this note is any indication.

PUT YOUR DUKES UP Thank you, Mimi Smartypants, for leading me to the "idea du jour," which is in fact the Googlefight Hall of Fame, where we see that a Google search of Madonna kicks the spit out of a Google search of Boy George. Do your own Googlefight at the bottom of the page. Shazam versus Isis -- no contest.

FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS A new survey from the Pew Global Attitudes Project says that a growing number of Arabs are enthusiastic about democratic ideas, American culture and the opportunities of a global economy. The bad news is that in Palestine, Morocco, Jordan, Indonesia and Turkey, respondants have significantly more confidence in Osama bin Laden than they do in President George Bush. By significantly more, I mean along the lines of 50-to-1 in favor of bin Laden.

GET YOUR ZOO GROOVE ON If you're hanging in the District this summer, there are at least two reasons to think about visiting the National Zoo. (Okay, three reasons if you really want to liberate all of the animals!) First, what a clever marketing department those animal handlers have -- events like "Won't You Take Me To... Monkeytown" and "I Get A Kick Out of Shrew." But you can Croc the Casbah with the snazzy rockers of the Washington Social Club at the National Zoo while you manhandle crocodiles on June 12.

CLIMBING INTO BED WITH RADIOHEAD Radiohead seeks to reclaim their title -- whichever title that happens to be -- with the release of "Hail to the Thief" next week. Sasha Frere-Jones and Gerald Marzorati adore it, one for its meta-ness, and the other because it's just splendid music.

Have you ever been to Oxford? It's where they're from, and it feels central to their sound. It's a very pretty town, full of these gorgeous old college buildings and a charming but highly commercialized high street, the seat of higher learning and chain stores both. It's a soothing place to be, and I maintain that singer Thom Yorke and the rest of Radiohead are in the business of lullabies. That's what they discovered with Kid A and Amnesiac, that their home strengths are drones and associative ... things. They don't necessarily want to write songs, I think, so their "failure" to do so is simply using the wrong measuring stick. Especially on this album, which rarely gets very physical, the process feels like walking through Oxford a bit drunk, thinking about how insane the election was, hearing ghostly, liminal water sounds, oh, damn, now there's a Waterstone's where that shop used to be, what won't they change in this town, oh, listen to those church bells, they never stop. ...

TRACKING A MYSTERY IN BAGHDAD Peter Maass tracked down the mysterious Iraqi web logger, Salam Pax. Here's the story.

WHEN BAD POLICY DEMANDS GOOD INFORMATION There were many reasons to justify an invasion of Iraq; the Bush administration chose one of the worse ones. Not only did they wage an information campaign built around a questionable policy, they apparently built an intelligence campaign built around questionable information. Sound circular? It is. U.S. News & World Report's trip down memory lane provides a readable, succinct narrative that demonstrates how an agenda hijacked military, inteligence and diplomatic policy.

On the evening of February 1, two dozen American officials gathered in a spacious conference room at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. The time had come to make the public case for war against Iraq. For six hours that Saturday, the men and women of the Bush administration argued about what Secretary of State Colin Powell should--and should not--say at the United Nations Security Council four days later. Not all the secret intelligence about Saddam Hussein's misdeeds, they found, stood up to close scrutiny. At one point during the rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bulls- - -."

AN ODE TO AN ERA, TAROT STYLE The 80s Tarot deck reeks of the sort of stylistically absorbed pathos that wrung the life out of pop music two decades ago. Meaning it's a really novel idea. For its time. Which was two decades ago. The King and Queen of Wands -- Prince and Katrina (of Katrina and the Waves, dude). It doesn't get more referential.

WHY I WISH I WERE A PENGUIN The Post presents a delightful profile of a biologist who Sassy Magazine would call "The World's Sassiest Biologist," if Sassy Magazine were still in print.

The keeper of the penguin enclosure at the Baltimore Zoo cautions us to walk softly: African penguins tend to spook when strangers appear and streak off for a swim in the surrounding moat.

When Olivia Judson, PhD, emerges onto their island, however, the thigh-high little critters crowd around, looking up at her eagerly, as if for instruction.

Who can blame them?

Judson, 33, is the Dear Abby of evolutionary biology. Her book "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation" manages the improbable feat of uniting in one volume the cosmic perspective of Charles Darwin with the titillating curiosity of Dr. Ruth.

She is also disturbingly gorgeous, apparently even to the penguin eye. They want to snuggle up with her and be read to. Don't they know that biologists dissect things? She was on the varsity fencing team at Oxford, for God's sake: Think of Catherine Zeta-Jones in "The Mark of Zorro."

CHOMSKY ON THE AMSTERDAM FORUM Radio Netherlands has been presenting a series of radio chats, including this insightful one with Noam Chomsky (the link goes to a transcript). Whether you think Noam Chomsky is insane, paranoid, brilliant, iconoclastic, bombastic or amazing (or some odd combination of those qualities), the interview itself is worth a read.

THE T-SHIRT MORGUE Courtesy of the laughing lass at Que Sera Sera comes the obituaries of t-shirts she's known and loved, including the Wonder Bread T-Shirt (1992-2000):

In 1992, Jay Carlson patronized a Hostess Bakery Thrift Store, where he acquired a t-shirt and some coconut snack thing. The shirt depicted a male loaf of Wonder Bread making google-y eyes at an eyelashed, and therefore female, loaf of Wonder Bread. The caption cleverly read, "Squeeze me, I'm fresh." While the coconut snack thing did not stand the test of time, the shirt and Jay became lifelong friends. The two rarely departed each other's company, and the shirt could often be seen pushing a bare-chested Jay on the swings.

In 2000, Wonder Bread T-shirt was diagnosed with the terminal "hamster chew holes" of the shoulder. People stopped squeezing. The ratty, yellowed shirt that Jay had been wearing since high school was sadly put down. The good times with “Squeeze Me, I’m Fresh” will always be remembered, as society looks onward to the next big thing in t-shirt technology, which is sure to involve iron-on puff paint.

CHAT IT UP For the past six weeks, White House officials have been engaged in online chats with "real people." Like King Bloop Zod of Mars, reports the Washington Post:

The space creature, one King Bloop Zod of planet Mars, sent an e-mail to the White House Web site in hopes of communicating with earthling Mel R. Martinez, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who was holding a Web chat. Their historic exchange follows.

King from Mars writes: Greetings Mr. Secretary. Although there are no humans on Mars at present, I would like to invite the human race to consider Mars as an ideal location for a vacation home or just a place to get away from it all. Would you consider offering incentives to those who might want to build a home on Mars? I'll tell you, it is a beautiful place and oh, let me tell you, there is nothing like Autumn on Mars. And please don't tell me that you are looking at Venus first. Kindly, King Bloop Zod, Mars

Mel Martinez: Dear King, Your problem is one that does not appear to be housing. I think you are doing great at promoting tourism but affordable housing in America is more of my concern. Good luck in your endeavors.

THE EAST COAST BYWAY Hop on your bike in Maine and pedal to Florida. Now there's a dream worth working for. The East Coast Greenway opened its first leg last month and plans to eventually link major East Coast cities (and Amtrak stations) by way of bike trails. Forget what I said about sliced bread -- this is a great idea! Browse the proposed map and read the project plan, then sign up to help.

OUT OF STEP The Justice Department under John Ashcroft has proven itself to be more out-of-step, more secretive and more defensive than any Cabinet department since perhaps James Watt's Interior Department in the 1980s -- and Watt was only chopping down trees, not destroying people's lives. The Justice Department's response to a recently released public report on the detentions after the September 11 attacks only emphasizes the arrogance, as spokeswoman Barbara Comstock declares the report "is fully consistent... that our actions are fully within the law." The Post disagrees.

You might think, from Ms. Comstock's declaration, that Mr. Fine had delivered a vindication. Which raises the question of whether she has read the same report we saw yesterday -- that is, the one that paints a disturbing picture of departmental decisions needlessly burdening the lives and liberty of many people wholly unconnected to terrorism and the one that describes "a pattern of abuse" at a federal detention facility. The report ought to be the subject of soul-searching by the department, not triumphalism.

A ROAD MAP FOR EVERYONE? If you're going to gamble in the Middle East, modern history shows, gamble big. Recent lessons show that bold moves backed by focused commitment might be the last, great hope for the region. Which is why David Ignatius' thoughts about a "road map" for Syria make sense. The region is in the best position -- though not necessarily for the right reasons -- than it has ever been for transformation. And linking the political destinies of Israel, Syria (and by default Lebanon), Jordan, Palestine and Iraq could go a long way to ensuring that the countries work together at least slightly more than they work against each other.

ORIGINS OF TERROR Peter Finn's exploration of the al Qaeda cell that launched five simultaneous attacks in Morocco several weeks ago affirms what many continue to ignore -- religious extremism may be the spark of terrorism, but the fuse lies in the abject poverty of Arab slums, where education makes promises never kept and the future seems hopeless. Finn describes how a cobbler recruited 13 other young men, plotted beneath the intelligence radar of one of North Africa's more aggressive countries in the war against terrorism, and killed 32 people.