Elvis Presley, Desert Storm [Fort Baxter/2CD] at BigO:

The "desert" was the Las Vegas Hilton on the night of Sept 2, 1974. It was the close of his latest season in America's gambling capital. The "storm" referred to was an onstage outburst against press stories linking him to drugs (particularly heroin use) and a paternity suit lodged against him. Elvis was paranoid and made his troubles part of the show, using the stage to exonerate himself. This show is the stuff of legend. It was first mentioned in Roy Carr and Mick Farren's Elvis - The Complete Illustrated Record published in 1982. They quoted extensively from it...

...The recording quality of Desert Storm is first class and the sleeve boasts it was taken from the "master tapes."

AP
Vice President Dick Cheney leaves a Republican Senate luncheon on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

Intervention? The Caspar (Wyo.) Star-Tribune editorial board: Wyoming's favorite son has taken a wrong turn:

...The old Dick Cheney didn't work exclusively behind the scenes. Republican fundraisers weren't the only events that drew him out in public. Before Cheney became the Bush administration's stealth warrior, most of us were proud that he grew up here and represented us. Even people who disagreed with his politics respected him.

There is still time for Cheney to mend his image before he leaves office in January 2009. But he needs to stop acting as though his decisions mustn't be questioned, and accept that he has made mistakes. No matter how many times Cheney insists Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, it won't change the fact that he wasn't. Too many people regret the Iraq war for anyone to buy Cheney's argument that opponents want to abet terrorism. That's offensive and insults Cheney's own intelligence.

Wyoming people are loyal to their own, but the vice president needs to give his neighbors a better reason to support him. He's running out of time.

It's alive! First artificial life 'within months' Telegraph UK.

And you thought hoped it was only sci-fi. This is just creepy.

Gross: Whats Cooking - 10 Weirdest Foods in the World at Escape Artist Travel Magazine.

Why is this only number 2?

2. Maggot Cheese in Sardinia
Sheer ick-factor must go to the Sardinese who, whilst inheriting the Italian love of cheese, have gone to stomach-turning extremes. One of Sardinia’s national delicacies is a rotten cheese (_casu marzu_) infested with maggots – the worms themselves become full of cheese fat and are considered quite sumptuous.

Autopsy? The Record Industry's Decline

In Rolling Stone:

It all could have been different: Seven years ago, the music industry's top executives gathered for secret talks with Napster CEO Hank Barry. At a July 15th, 2000, meeting, the execs -- including the CEO of Universal's parent company, Edgar Bronfman Jr.; Sony Corp. head Nobuyuki Idei; and Bertelsmann chief Thomas Middelhof -- sat in a hotel in Sun Valley, Idaho, with Barry and told him that they wanted to strike licensing deals with Napster. "Mr. Idei started the meeting," recalls Barry, now a director in the law firm Howard Rice. "He was talking about how Napster was something the customers wanted."

The idea was to let Napster's 38 million users keep downloading for a monthly subscription fee -- roughly $10 -- with revenues split between the service and the labels. But ultimately, despite a public offer of $1 billion from Napster, the companies never reached a settlement. "The record companies needed to jump off a cliff, and they couldn't bring themselves to jump," says Hilary Rosen, who was then CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America. "A lot of people say, 'The labels were dinosaurs and idiots, and what was the matter with them?' But they had retailers telling them, 'You better not sell anything online cheaper than in a store,' and they had artists saying, 'Don't screw up my Wal-Mart sales.' " Adds Jim Guerinot, who manages Nine Inch Nails and Gwen Stefani, "Innovation meant cannibalizing their core business."

Sidebar: The Fall of the Record Business: What Next?

Desire, inhaled: Is the World Ready for Libido in a Nasal Spray? In New York Magazine:

Horn of rhinoceros. Penis of tiger. Root of sea holly. Husk of the emerald-green blister beetle known as the Spanish fly. So colorful and exotic is the list of substances that have been claimed to heighten sexual appetite that it’s hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment on first beholding the latest entry—a small white plastic nasal inhaler containing an odorless, colorless synthetic chemical called PT-141. Plain as it is, however, there is one thing that distinguishes PT-141 from the 4,000 years’ worth of recorded medicinal aphrodisiacs that precede it: It actually works.

And it’s coming to a medicine cabinet near you. The drug will soon enter Phase 3 clinical trials, the final round of testing before it goes to the Food and Drug Administration for review, and with the FDA’s approval it could reach the market in as soon as three years. The full range of possible risks and side effects has yet to be determined, but already this much is known: Putting that inhaler up your nose and popping off a dose of PT-141 results, in most cases, in a stirring in the loins in as few as fifteen minutes. Women, according to one set of results, feel “genital warmth, tingling and throbbing,” not to mention “a strong desire to have sex.” Among men, who’ve been tested with the drug more extensively, the data set is, shall we say, richer:

San Francisco Chronical columnist Mark Morford has way too much adult fun with this one.