1/4: Morning Communique

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Steve Monaco has some great excerpts from a 1955 issue of Adventures Into the Unknown at Couch Pundit.

Diablo Cody hits the strip clubs and brings home a new pussy at Pussy Ranch.

THESE DAYS

Republican Lynn Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver, is expected to kick off his political career by declaring his candidacy for Pennsylvania's governorship today.

The Rhode Island House of Representatives voted yesterday to override Gov. Donald Carcieri's veto of a bill legalizing medical marijuana.

A Chinese court has sided with Starbucks in its moniker battle with a Shanghai rival, Xingbake (shing bah kuh) Cafe Corporation. Xing means "star," and bake (bah kuh) sounds like "bucks."

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Maureen Breitzmann may need a publicist if she's in the Strib's Home & Garden section on the same day her blog, minnehouse: tales of our first place, is feted.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

Play Russian roulette with someone who doesn't resemble Christopher Walken

100 things we didn't know this time last year according to BBC News

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"In Europe, there's a sense this film comes from the tradition of absurdist war movies about the futility of conflict. It has more in common with Beckett, Sartre and Banuel than it does with Oliver Stone. In America, they assumed I was trying to make an Oliver Stone movie and that I'd failed."

-- Jarhead director Sam Mendes