A ton of links today. Now go forth and vote.

• The Return of Superfly - This one’s been around for a long time, but if you haven’t read it already, you should. The real Frank Lucas is way, way more interesting than the Denzel character. A demerit to the screenwriter, or to whoever made the decision to make Lucas less fun. Here’s a choice excerpt: “A couple of days later, eating at a T.G.I. Friday’s, Lucas scowled through glareproof glass to the suburban strip beyond. ‘Look at this shit,’ he said. A giant Home Depot down the road especially bugged him. Bumpy Johnson himself couldn’t have collected protection from a damn Home Depot, he said with disgust. ‘What would Bumpy do? Go in and ask to see the assistant manager? Place is so big, you get lost past the bathroom sinks. But that’s the way it is now. You can’t find the heart of anything to stick the knife into.’”
• A Conversation Between Frank Lucas and Nicky Barnes - Money 2007 — New York Magazine - More Frank Lucas.
• Music review: Jay-Z, “American Gangster,” hip-hop, rap | Salon Arts & Entertainment - Bomani Jones, also a sportswriter for ESPN, gives a glowing review of Jay-Z’s new album. Which leads to perhaps the biggest reason for my disappointment in American Gangster. All the previews–at least the early ones–were set to Jay-z’s Heart of the City, one of my favorite songs, which got me too fired up and distracted me from the fact that it’d likely be just another cliche rise-and-fall flick, the gist of which my friend Sujan and I accurately predicted in a brief, off-handed, online conversation (Denzel as stately and misunderstood; grudging respect between him and Russell Crowe; filmmakers congratulating themselves for appreciating moral ambiguity through heavy-handed devices, etc. That said, it’s still worth seeing–well shot, Denzel’s good, and kept my attention for 2.5 hours, which is no small feat.). Also, I know everyone loves Reasonable Doubt, and I love it, too, but I feel like production’s underappreciated in the evaluation of rappers’ ouevres. Everyone hypes early work for the realness and rawness (the production on Reasonable Doubt is really good, no doubt), but I’ll be damned if I don’t love some top-notch hooks and beats almost as much as lyrical mastery. I’m what’s wrong with hip-hop! Someone tell Nas, Talib Kweli, Bill Cosby, etc.
• Mr Nice: An Autobiography - Google Book Search - Another fascinating kingpin, this time in the pot trade. This is one of my favorite books.
• Flickr Photo Download: shilshole_32 - Found on Slog. What an awesome picture.
• {mikeoliver.org} » Blog Archive » The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All The Lawyers - The situation in Pakistan is pretty awful. This is what you get when you base your foreign policy on the idea that “you’re with us or you’re against us.” 13-year-olds are more nuanced in choosing their friends. But this post contains one of the funnier lawyer jokes I’ve read (in the comments) and also a photograph that makes a riot gear beating look like a b-boy dance circle.
• Jamaica’s Powerless, Oppressed, Terrorized Homosexuals Plan to Take Over Planet, Destroy Life on Earth | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle’s Only Newspaper - Dan Savage publishes the author’s e-mail address, so at least maybe they’ll take over her inbox.
• Let airport staff ‘kill’ baddies for better security - tech - 06 November 2007 - New Scientist Tech - You can’t read the full article without a subscription, but I found the teaser interesting enough.
• Law.com - Retroactivity for Crack Sentence Cuts Debated - Pretty much everyone agrees that the sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine were based on bad science (and some good old-fashioned hysteria (meth, anyone?)), and that they created massive racial disparities in incarceration. So the Sentencing Commission finally decided to fix them. But the good ol’ US DOJ opposes making the fix retroactive.
• Justice Dept. Voting Chief Apologizes But Persists - washingtonpost.com - More fun with our DOJ, in honor of voting day.
• National Popular Vote — Electoral college reform by direct election of the President - Also in honor of voting day (a holiday everywhere else): a credible plan to rid ourselves of the problems of the electoral college. The idea is that each state pass a law dictating that their electoral votes be given to the popular vote winner as soon as a majority of states have the same law on their books. Brilliant way to bypass the virtual impossibility of constitutional amendment, and can be done over time. Thanks to Nirav for the link.
• Genetic breakthrough could give dandruff the brush-off, claim scientists | the Daily Mail - Not quite the great scientific advance we’ve all been waiting for, but not bad, I suppose. Interesting how they went about it, with a giant vat of yeast, some liquid nitrogen, and a powerful computer. It sounds like a bad 80s movie.
• A Corona, Please, and Don’t Hold the Lime - New York Times - It’s a health code violation for a bartender to touch the lime that goes in your drink with his or her bare hands. Who knew?

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