The last time I looked, oh, about a month ago, this column was called The Juice. I wrote it for over a year at MSNBC.com, where (my staff of thousands reminds me) it was that Website's most popular daily Weblog.

Bidding for greater freedom, fame and fortune, I'm now calling it Straight Up and posting it here. (In the age of cyberspace, where visibility counts more than ever and media giants aim to monopolize the Web, a bit of independence at least honors the founding ideals of the Internet.)

Before I begin ...

Have an online look at two things in real time: the mounting cost of the war in Iraq and what's happening in Times Square. I would suggest there's a direct correlation: The higher the cost, the glummer the tourists.

Manhattan's so-called crossroad of the world looks pretty glum. Oppressive heat and rain may be a factor, but take another look at that running total. It's climbing faster than you can count. Would that put a smile on any sane citizen's face?

The folks who posted the scoreboard, Niko Matsakis and Elias Vlanton, don't say what the money would buy in terms of arts and culture. You can see what the board shows, though, for other essentials: children's health, pre-school, public education and housing, college scholarships and energy independence.

Now have a look (use the drop-down menu) at what the war and occupation is costing your town or city. Then tell me why there's no California recall for Gee Dubya.

In the meantime ...

A majority of the Defense Intelligence Agency's engineering experts are saying "the most likely use for two mysterious trailers found in Iraq" was indeed to produce hydrogen for weather balloons used as targets in artillery practice and not (as the CIA and the DIA itself claimed, and as Gee Dubya annnounced to the world) to produce biological weapons.

Well, Google unwittingly knew it all along — thanks to Web wit Anthony Cox, who commandeered the site. With apologies to readers who've already seen this, go to Google. Type: weapons of mass destruction (no quotation marks). Do NOT click Google Search. Instead, click: I'm Feeling Lucky. Then read the whole error message carefully. If you're one of those people who have no time for a couple of clicks, you can go straight to the error message. But it does spoil some of the fun.

Music for the ages

What's come over The Wall Street Journal? It always had a reputation for quirky front-page features about stuff you never dreamed of. But in the last month, it's given front-page coverage to arts and culture.