Sam's blog: Flotsam & Jetsam, by Sam Smith, editor, activist, social critic, author and... musician.

Sam smartly slaps the left upside the head in an essay that currently leads this blog (MISSING IN ACTION: THE AMERICAN LEFT):

Under Reagan and the Bushes, the left was happy to do what it seems to like best: protest. Under Clinton it switched gears and quietly and obediently complied. In either case - dissenter or drone - the left did little to offer Americans an alternative vision, platform or movement.

28 Washington Post reporters were assigned to cover the city's sleet storm Wednesday. From his own storm experience at the paper, Sam writes (THE CAPITAL'S FAVORITE SORT OF CRISIS),

What the Post had actually sent out 28 reporters to cover was, according to Accuweather, exactly .92 inches of precipitation. But the Post takes such things quite seriously as your editor discovered two decades ago when he was still in the publication's good graces. He had been asked to write a piece on the latest storm and sat in an office for half an hour as the editor of the Outlook section and the op ed page editor argued over who would get to run it. The amazing thing was that neither had read the actual article. What they were really arguing about was who was in charge of snow.

When you click on that link above, the resulting item now appears under a banner reading "City Desk," not Flotsam & Jetsam. Categories, perhaps.

The publication Sam edits, The Progressive Review, is a stunning example of antique Web design, circa 1994.

If you're now clued that this is one quirky site, Sam misspells the name of this publication, leaving out an "s," in Flotsam & Jetsam's banner. I can't help but think it's deliberate.

Sam also offers mp3 tracks from jazz bands he's played in, piano and sometimes vocals. Scroll down the right column till you find the piano keyboard graphic.

More Mp3s: Norah Jones Paris 2007.

The anti-Sam: A stunning tour de force of Web design from FujiFilm, the beautiful but overblown Forests Forever Flash production.

Smart conceptual art: These nicely surreal visual ideas are what the Worth1000 Photoshopping contests wish they were.

DRM debate: Pirates of the Multiplex. Vanity Fair. A long feature on Digital Rights Management, file-sharing via Torrents. torrent-tracker Pirate Bay, and the entertainment industry.

DRM loses hearts and minds: Most music industry execs now want to dump DRM, at MacWorld.

Can't make this up:

Mauritanian Hijacker Gets in Hot Water. AP,

TENERIFE, Canary Islands - A fast-thinking pilot with passengers in cahoots fooled a hijacker by braking hard upon landing, then accelerating to knock the man down. When he fell, flight attendants threw boiling water in his face, and about 10 people pounced on him, Spanish officials said Friday.

Brain cells in a dish fly fighter plane at New Scientist.

Six miles high: Storm whips paraglider to heights of 32,000 ft. Telegraph U.K:

A champion paraglider described today her terror at being flung to a height greater than Mount Everest by a tornado-like thunderstorm in Australia. Ewa Wisnerska, 35, was sucked so high that she blacked out and became encased in ice....