1. The FADER's Aaliyah issue is hitting newsstands next week - and debuting on 106 and Park in about twenty minutes. I've got a little remembrance in there - an honor to be alongside for-real illuminaries! - and the all-Aaliyah mix I did for the issue will be posted up over there next week, too.

2. The big drug bust story out of San Diego State - you know, where the feds busted over 100 frat dudes selling coke, ecstasy and weed after a year-long investigation - is not without its funny-from-a-distance moments. The Wire it was not:

The day after the drug sweep landed members of three fraternities in jail and led to the suspension of six frats, investigators revealed how easy it was to penetrate the university's drug culture.

Students who had gotten caught for fighting, drinking, minor drug offenses or other crimes quickly turned informants and used text messages to introduce their drug dealers to undercover agents. Dealers made handoffs in front of dorms, in parking lots or behind frat houses, sometimes in broad daylight in full view of surveillance cameras.

They apparently made little effort to launder their spoils. One fraternity brother arrested Tuesday drove his Lexus directly from a $400 cocaine sale on campus to a nearby bank, where he deposited the cash, according to court papers.

That came as a surprise to agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, who were used to being thoroughly screened by dealers scared of being arrested....

The ringleader, a 19-year-old, brazenly sent out text messages advertising weekend blowout sales on cocaine, authorities say.

File under "This Week In U Ain't Gangsta"...

3. Super Kookies! Via Finny.

4. Somebody buy me this jacket. I would pay sixty for it - maybe 80 even - and feel good but 190 + 20 shipping (from Noofie land!) is too damn much.

5. Goddamn if the Genevan Heathen's blogg isn't the best I've seen all year. Reading this shit is kinda like sitting by the pool all drunk and happy at 3 in the afternoon playing fun shit on the stereo with like six different parties to go to when the sun goes down and a billion people calling your phone wanting to hang out. And Cuizi-cuiz's POUR LES FILLES VOL. III drops next week. Highest recommendation.

6. Buffalo's finest DJ NOODLES destroying shit.

DJ Noodles ft. Pitbull, Red Cafe, Hot Rod, Trazz, Murphy Lee, Jay Rock - Can't U Tell [mp3]

Incidentally, when he's not making astute political observations, ol' E is absolutely destroyin it over at him and Bo's site, Crossfaded Bacon, with all kinds of homebrewed remixes posted up for download as of late. Everything's posted up at a sparkling 320 kbps - except for his lethal N.O. bounce remix of South Rakkas's Mad Again, which you gotta buy at the Lab - so check for the man and tell him I sent ya.

emynd (10:10:17 AM): sweet, bro money!
emynd (10:10:38 AM): why did i drink this big ass 7-11 cappucino?

"I had the blond tips for a minute, but it was time for something new," said Lynch. "I was going to go with green because that's my favorite color, but I kept it Bills and went with the red."

Senator Clinton, take it from Buffalo Bills fan Timmy Russert: it's over!

Hell of a night, huh? Thrilling. I'm thrilled.

I'm also staying up to see what those 200,000 outstanding votes have to say.

CBS News gets the gasface tonight for the early call. MSNBC FTW.

Things are getting very exciting. When this logjam breaks, it will be euphoric: a sudden rush of possibility, a new proximity to something different.

One step closer...

Speak, votes!

Like football bets, the margin is key now.

YO WHAT THE FUCK???

If this holds, this'll be the third wknd in a row where everything's just peachy M-Th while you're stuck inside making plans to be on porches all weekend but then the fuckin wheels fall off at around 5 PM on Friday. HARD NOT TO TAKE THIS PERSONALLY. FUCK THIS.

***

Elsewhere, Sabres sign Nathan Gerbe, the 5'5', 175 phenom from Boston College, the best damn player in college hockey. Again, he's 5'5'.

I should make an official prediction about tonight, right? Well, clearly the universe is conspiring to make this primary last as long as possible. So what's going to happen is that (of course) Clinton will win Indiana and Obama will win North Carolina. But Clinton will win Indiana by a larger margin than Obama wins North Carolina, and Clinton's supporters will note in somber tones that Obama lost the white vote in NC. At the same time, because NC has substantially more delegates than Indiana, Obama will actually make a small gain in net delegates causing his supporters (i.e. me) to become further enraged at Clinton's refusal to admit that she's lost and the press' insistence on indulging the idea that there's real doubt about the ultimate outcome.

As Soul Korea said: "Lovely! Makes me want to Dean-scream."

Tuesday's finally here.

Big day for us Dems, of course, as votes will be cast and tallied in Indiana and North Carolina. Come this evening, I'll be glued to MSNBC, Miller Lite in hand, hoping against hope that we'll wake up Wednesday with a de facto Democratic nominee. Finally. Please.

Drudge is already screaming about a 15 point Obama blowout in North Carolina, but I think it'll be more like an 8 point win. The bigger the margin in NC, the better, obviously, but all eyes will be on Indiana. If Obama wins the Hoosier State - and some polls this morning have him making it very, very close - game over. (Or, more accurately, on to Level 2.)

My man Mike from Fort Wayne, Indiana writes in this morning, feeling pretty good about Senator Obama's chances:

Caps, I have lived in Fort Wayne for six years and watched this town and state take its share of lumps. Today is the day that all that changes. I heard somebody saying on NPR yesterday that there is 200,000 new registered voters in the state of Indiana with no way of telling how they will vote, that's exciting! I hope tomorrow Indiana can stand proud being the state that gave the nation, nay, the world a fighting chance at true progress.

Here's hoping, Mike. It's gonna be - like everything else thus far in this accursed primary - very interesting.

Quick round-up of politix links to melt the hours a little faster:

1. WaPo's Dan Balz breaks down eight fundamental questions about the Democratic race that will be answered (or at the least illuminated) by today's votes: What's Clinton's end game? How badly has Obama been hurt by Wright? Whither working class whites? Etc. This should be read hand-in-hand with Halperin's cable-tv ready narrative scripts, which I posted last night.

2. Getting ahead of myself, let me just say here for the record that if Senator Obama does win the nomination - which I tend to think is all but certain - I predict with great regret that Michelle Obama will be completely demonized by the right come fall. All the sympathetic New Yorker profiles in the world won't be able to stop it.

Since long before the founding, African-American women have bore the evil brunt of some of the worst of this country, the terrible double burden of being both the wrong color and the wrong gender. I shudder to think of what that dynamic may look like in September 2008, with a nation on the verge of electing a black man President. I very much hope I'm wrong, but I think it's going to be horrible, a putrid belch of barely-repressed fear and loathing, a deathbed appeal by racism, our nation's oldest shame, to white America's basest instincts. The meme-warriors on the far right are gonna make sure she is laden with every nasty unspoken prejudice they can stir up in our collective unconscious. The (laughable) "elitist" tag currently being affixed is a very tame start, but I fear it'll get much worse.

3. Pitch-perfect political satire/commentary from GasTaxScam.com:

CONFIDENTIAL/URGENT POLITICAL PROPOSAL
Dear Sir

First we must solicit your confidence in this issue. This is by virtue as being utterly confidential and "top secret".

We are SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON, the wife of the former United States head of state, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, and also SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, friend and associate of current head of state PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH. We got your contact through business inquiries as we were searching for contacts of a citizen who can help save our and our family's political careers since our country has been frustrating us.

We are top officials of the United States Senate Government who are interested in importation of oil into our country with funds that are presently trapped in the FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUND dedicated to improving transportation. We wish to send this money to overseas accounts in the MIDDLE EAST but cannot due to restrictions in Congress Transportation Equity Act requiring that this money must be spent to build roads, bridges and high speed trains.

If you accept we will deliver to your a sum of 30 DOLLARS in the summer 2008 in form of a "GAS TAX HOLIDAY". You will then deliver this money to accounts of our friends in Middle East by taking it to your nearby gasoline station where they have information to forward the money. Please supply your bank account, social security number, address and your vote in DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES AND NOVEMBER GENERAL ELECTION...

4. The peacemaker: Obama asks Nigerian militants (the infamous oil pirates) for a ceasefire. Reuters reports today that the militants are "seriously considering" the offer.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has launched five attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta since it resumed a campaign of violence in April, forcing Royal Dutch Shell to shut more than 164,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).

"The MEND command is seriously considering a temporary ceasefire appeal by Senator Barack Obama. Obama is someone we respect and hold in high esteem," the militant group said in an e-mailed statement.

Taken by Nash.

1. DAVID HORVITZ: THINGS FOR SALE THAT I WILL MAIL YOU

For every $1 you give me I will look out at the Pacific Ocean for one minute for you. If you give me $1 I will watch the ocean for one minute. If you give me $345 I will watch the ocean for 345 minutes. I will send you the exact times and location I did this, as well as a photograph. If you give me under $10 I will send you this via email. If you give me more than $10 I will send it via postal mail.

Yes! Via Finny.

2. Bills rookie offensive tackle Demetrius Bell is the son of the motherfuckin Mailman, Mr. Karl Malone. Cool, huh? Actually, no - cause Bell's biological didn't bother. It's fucked up, too, as The Buffalo News' always-stellar Allen Wilson documents:

Bell is the son of Malone, but the Mailman had no role in Bell's success except passing along athletic genes.

The two have had very little contact during Bell's life. His mother, Gloria Bell, reportedly was only 13 years old and Malone a college sophomore at Louisiana Tech when Demetrius was born. Malone might have served jail time had her family asked the district attorney to file criminal charges.

Bell didn't even know Malone was his father until after graduating from high school. When they finally met, Malone told the 18-year-old Bell it was too late to be his father, and that Bell would have to "earn his money on his own."

In a 1998 story in the Salt Lake (Utah) Tribune, Gloria Bell said, "Demetrius is ashamed that his dad doesn't claim him. But I've told him it is not his fault."

Malone also fathered twins while in high school. One of them is WNBA star Cheryl Ford. It took years to claim the twins, and now he and his wife, Kay, fully accept them as part of their family.

But what about Demetrius? Doesn't he deserve the same measure of love and recognition?

Emphasis mine. Shit is fucked up. Fuck you, Mailman. I hope Demetrius Bell becomes a goddamn Hall-of-Famer for the Bills.

3. Anal bleaching? Seriously? I had no idea such a practice existed. Wow.

4. THIS WEEK IN GANGSTA:

a. Taking his cues from vintage Nas, 18-y-o would-be high school bomber Ryan Schallenberger told a sheriff that he wanted to snuff Jesus:

An agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives testified that the teen told a sheriff he wanted to die after his arrest.

"He said death was better than life," Craig Townsend said. "He told the sheriff he wanted to die and go to heaven and once he got there, he wanted to kill Jesus."

And how sad and mom is this?

Prosecutors also played a 911 tape of the teen's mother calling police after he smashed his head into a wall two days before his arrest. On the tape, she says her son threatened to shoot police if they came.

"He's not going to do it," Laurie Sittler told the operator. "He's just got a bad temper."

b. 300 lb. inmate sues the county because he says the jail doesn't feed him right. Dude's lost a 100 pounds already! HE'S TRYNA LIVE!

c. 20-y-o Penn State student can't get student loans cause his mom has bad credit. Instead, dude sells coke - and gets busted. Straight A business student, too. Sad shit. Hold on to the movie rights, kid.

Thanks to Brains for the links & the concept. T.W.I.G. may become a regular thing here at el stence. Send in your tips. Nothing too far in either direction. You'll know it when you see it like Potter Stewart.

5. SQUISHABLE.COM

6. NY Mag interview with GTAIV co-writer reveals that early concepts for the game could have included a virtual Buffalo:

How did you pick which areas of New York to feature?

We went from maybe doing the whole of New York State. And then it was just Manhattan, then it expanded out again and was going to be a bunch of suburbs, maybe like Westchester or out to Long Island with woods so you could go bury people. We made lists of what must we keep, what can we drop, what's got to be there, what can we smash in together. Like how we don't do Staten Island and do New Jersey: we would all vote on it. We didn't want to offend anyone in Staten Island, but you get the same suburban neighborhoods in Jersey, plus some factories and stuff.

Also, this is dead-on re: NY radio:

How have the radio stations in the game improved?

We went basically from about eight or nine stations in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to eighteen different radio stations this time. We wanted [the news station] to feel like 1010 WINS, so we got one of the main voices [John Montone] to be our news reader. Problem is, in New York now, you can't find seventeen radio stations you want to listen to. We tried to get stuff that would feel like what you would want to hear if you came to New York. Not necessarily what you do find here, but what you ought to hear if it was like the way you'd imagined it.

God that's so fucking true. For the most part, NY radio is a huge disappointment, at least outside of hot nine seven territory.

Relatedly: NY Mag (again; I can't help it that they're kinda running shit) on why the comparisons of GTAIV to classics of other mediums (like, say, The Godfather) are necessarily odious. And GTAIV Etch-A-Sketchist.

That's it from the sea of Grand Theft Auto coverage; god knows it's been all Niko Bellic and Jeremiah Wright this week in the national media. Also, be advised that I am very much enjoying the game, although I have only sunk an hour or two into it thus far. THE PAVEMENT LOOKS SO REAL. THEY EVEN HAVE THOSE METAL BOARDS OVER THE POTHOLES. AND IT LOOKS APPROPRIATELY DIRTY. Also, Goodbye Horses (even though they're two years too late; Ayres was right when he called it the 2006 song) and Isley Brothers. And Niko's accent is the new Borat. And I haven't even met the Jamaican dudes yet, but I have had digital sex. Finny was sitting next to me. Brave new world, etc etc.

7. One last note about the Bills. I love this blog entry today about 6'6' rookie wideout James Hardy from Chris Brown, the Bills' in-house press dude:

HARDY'S HEIGHT IS LEGIT: Seeing Hardy out on the field he's at least a head taller than almost every other player. What's crazy is wearing jersey number 81 it makes him look even longer. That one on his jersey just seems to lengthen him all the more. I imagine that will look all the more intimidating to a smaller cornerback lined up on the other side of him.

God what an awesome entry. A long 1. I might have to cop a Hardy jersey on the strength of the intimidating long numeral.

8. Time 100 Covers: Finalists. Also via the indispensable Finny.

Hola amigos. Been a long time since I rapped at ya.

My apologies for the delay, dudes, but it was for YOU. While the site hummed along silently, with each of you reloading hundreds if not thousands of times waiting for just the tiniest skosh of an update, I was off on an epic link hunt, traveling across the farthest reaches of the interwebb, questing for content. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Animated gifs on fire, off the shoulder of Orion. I watched jpegs glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those... pixels...

1. Via Veronika: Fox News fucks up, confuses Frederick Douglass with Stephen Douglas. Classic!

2. Thom Lessner wheatpastin': SPOTTED! My favorite part is the google-mapping. Focused.

3. 16 Abandoned & Decaying Hotels from Around the World, via Finny. Ryugyong Hotel in N. Korea is fuckin bonkers.

4. Mission Accomplished, five years gone. Matt Yglesias digs up the contemporary CNN coverage of the fiasco:

It was the first time a sitting president has arrived on the deck of an aircraft carrier by plane...

Moments after the landing, the president, wearing a green flight suit and holding a white helmet, got off the plane, saluted those on the flight deck and shook hands with them. Above him, the tower was adorned with a big sign that read, "Mission Accomplished."

Bush said he did take a turn at piloting the craft.

"Yes, I flew it. Yeah, of course, I liked it," said Bush, who was an F-102 fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard after graduating from Yale University in 1968.

"Great job," said Bush, a wide smile stretched across his face as he posed for photographs with crew members who gathered to get their pictures with the president. He draped his arms around some, slapped the backs of others and shook hands with many.

To others, the president said, "Thank you," and " 'preciate it."

At one point, he looked up to the observation deck and held up both arms to the roar of hundreds of sailors who had crowded the area.

The landing came just hours before Bush is to tell the nation that major combat operations in Iraq have ended. The speech will be delivered from the carrier's flight deck at 9 p.m. EDT.

Jesus fucking christ. Sadly, Yglesias gets it right:

Since that time, thousands of Americans have died, who knows how many more have been wounded, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent, and millions of Iraqis have been killed or displaced. Naturally, current policy calls for us to stay in Iraq, possibly fighting for decades in the hopes that peace eventually breaks out on terms that allow us to establish a permanent military presence there. Makes sense to me.

Even the White House did the unthinkable yesterday and admitted it got "Mission Accomplished" wrong. Scary.