HE'S A HOLE MAN
From the outside, William Lyttle's house in Hackney, east London, looks no different. But since the early 1960s,Lyttle has been digging a network of burrows underneath and noone knows how far they stretch. But according to the authorities, which used ultrasound scanners to ascertain the extent of the problem, almost half a century of nibbling dirt with a shovel and homemade pulley has hollowed out a web of tunnels and caverns, some 8m (26ft) deep, spreading up to 20m in every direction from his house.
(GUARDIAN, unearthed by Matt McCarthy)

9/11 TRANSCRIPTS RELEASED
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this week released full transcripts of the air traffic control recordings from the four flights hijacked on September 11, 2001, and meticulous Flight Path Studies for three of the flights, in response to a Freedom of Information request by the National Security Archive. The studies, posted on the Web today by the National Security Archive, provide the most detailed technical information available to date related to the hijackings, and the transcripts of the aircraft-to-ground communications are the first complete government disclosure of each flight's air traffic control recordings.

The transcripts provide additional details to the information summarized in the 9/11 Commission Report. For example, the NTSB transcript differs slightly from the Commission's text of the warning that United Airlines Flight 93 received only minutes before the hijackers attacked. At 9:23am, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) shows a text message to Flight 93 reading: "BEWARE OF ANY COCKPIT INTROUSION [sic]. TWO AIRCRAFT IN NY, HIT TRADE CNTER BUILDS [sic]." Five minutes later at 9:28am Flight 93 was sending the message "***(mayday)*** (hey get out of here) ***" as it was being hijacked.
(NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVES)

HERE COMES CHICKEN JOHN!
"If all goes as planned, and that is no sure bet, an unlikely crew on an improbable craft will amble the Mississippi for the next month, spreading culture and chaos downriver."
(NEW YORK TIMES ARTS SECTION, unearthed by John Furman)

MOLLY THOMAS PLAYS WITH TODD SNIDER BAND ON LENO THIS WEDNESDAY!
Good friend and accomplished violinist (she "got trained" as we like to say around here) will be appearing Wednesday, August 9 on the Jay Leno Show as one of Todd Snider's musicians. Originally from Mississippi, we here in Mobile consider her a homie.

She played and sang for a group called Slow Moses and was a bartender at The Bike Shop, a local watering hole. In addition to being a wonderful musician,
she is a good friend and lovely person. She left us a few years ago for the bright lights and potential of Nashville.

I don't know who Todd Snider is but he must have great taste as he utilizes, not only Molly, but Mobile's Will Kimbrough
another wonderfully talented local guy who has also migrated to Nashville and is making waves in that orbit
.
(THANKS TO MICHAEL SMITH FOR HELP WITH THE WILL KIMBROUGH LINK)

COMUNISMO A LO CUBANO!
Everyone comes looking for their own version of Cuba. Revolutionaries find revolutions. Capitalists find dictatorship. Tourists find the perfect beach. Yet, nobody wants to see Cuba through Cuban eyes. It is a dynamic country that was not frozen in time since the Revolution of 1959, but is evolving and continually changing. There were debates on every street corner, both strong affirmations and deep criticisms of the president, Fidel Castro. And yet there is one consensus: like all citizens, Cubans passionately love their country."
(TORONTO STAR)