May 31, 2006

A Referral Not to Get

I usually find Balko's analysis to be reasonably accurate so when he says:

Such intricately layered, mutli-dimensional, unwavering cluelessness stacked upon ignorance rolled up in delusion really deserves the Spurlock treatment (hell, wouldn't Spurlock and Kemenetz make a great couple?).

I'm just not going to go read the original source material...

Posted by Steve on May 31, 2006

This Should Be Bundled In The OS!

Microsoft has been hammered over the years for bundling functionality into Windows that many think should be sold/given away separately. However, when it comes to stuff that really should be in the OS like, well, security they decide to deliver and charge for it separately:

Microsoft's new Windows Live OneCare product will be in stores tomorrow. The subscription service costs $50 a year for up to three computers, and includes anti-virus and anti-spyware features, the ability to back up photos and other files, regular "PC tune-ups" and phone support.
I'd expect that Microsoft would not be investing in and rolling out this product if they did not expect these problems to be around for a long time. Does this mean that Microsoft is now incented to ensure that Windows XP and the future Windows Vista do not provide the levels of security that users should expect from their operating system?

It sure seems to imply that Vista will not solve these problems for users....

Posted by Steve on May 31, 2006

Just Say NO!

gonzales and mueller can simply go spend their time sharing their personal transactions with each other:

Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller privately met with representatives of AOL, Comcast, Google, Microsoft and Verizon last week and said that Internet providers--and perhaps search engines--must retain data for two years to aid in anti-terrorism prosecutions, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity on Tuesday.
If there is an active investigation and these twinks have demonstrated probable cause to a judge in a non-secret court that some one may be involved in the commission of a crime or has committed a crime then you can start tapping that one person's data now. You do not get to build a massive fishing pond.

Yet another reason to toss'm all out...and not replace'm.

Via Why Now.

Posted by Steve on May 31, 2006

Where Is He Talking About?

Buried deep in a Wired article about home chemistry and science development:

“To criminalize the necessary materials of discovery is one of the worst things you can do in a free society,” says Shawn Carlson, a 1999 MacArthur fellow and founder of the Society for Amateur Scientists.
Uhhh, just where is this free society Carlson refers to? This article describes some wierd totalitarian society that once could be found only in stalinist russia or some dystopia leached from a science fiction writer's nightmare.

Via Hit & Run.

Posted by Steve on May 31, 2006

May 26, 2006

Act Now!

Hmmm, Finn has got it wrong... we'd better get the world straightened out (rather, governments out of the world) before they get their hands on this stuff:

"Yes, you could actually make someone invisible as long as someone wears a cloak made of this material," said Patanjali Parimi, a Northeastern University physicist and design engineer at Chelton Microwave Corp. in Bolton, Mass. Parimi was not involved in the research.

Such a cloak does not exist, but early versions that could mask microwaves and other forms of electromagnetic radiation could be as close as 18 months away, Pendry said. He said the study was "an invitation to come and play with these new ideas."

"We will have a cloak after not too long," he said.

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency supported the research, given the obvious military applications of such stealthy technology.

Via Unqualified Offerings.

Posted by Steve on May 26, 2006 | Comments (1)

Friday Ark #88

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

We will add your post to the list if you do one of the following:

  • Leave a comment or trackback to this post (Don't panic if you get back an "internal server error" message. Haven't been able to figure out why this is happening but comments still seem to post.). Also note that all comments are now moderated,
  • Use the Carnival Submission Form,
  • Use the Blog Carnival Submission Form,
  • Email Modulator or
  • Our extensive staff finds it during our weekly search of the web

Of course, if our staff goes on strike then we will link only those posts someone tells us about. Time permitting we will continue boardings until the Carnival of the Cats goes up on Sunday.

Do link to the Friday Ark whether you use trackbacks or not.

Visit each border and come back regularly Friday-Sunday to visit new boarders.

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (61 shouts as of 05/25)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 113th edition, 5/21, is up at a href="http://www.imao.us/archives/005484.html">IMAO. The 114th edition will be hosted by Niobium on 5/28. There are more weekly cats at eatstuff's Weekend Cat Blogging which has many participants who may not be familiar to Ark or Carnival participants. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 24th edition is up and hosted by Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding. The 25th edition will be hosted on 6/8 by Rob's Idaho Perspective.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The eigth edition is up at Get Busy Livin', or Get Busy Bloggin'. The 9th edition will be hosted at the end of may by Burning Silo.

Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.

Update 6:00 PM EDT:In a bit staff will be 0n the road for 5-6 hours. Should be able to do an update before sleep time.

Update 5/27 2:30 AM EDT: Back online for a few updates. Have a great weekend.

Update 5/27 Mornng: Offline for most of today.

Cats

DogsOther VertebratesInvertebratesBirdsIn Memoriam
Didn't Make It
Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)
For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat's Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users: Haloscan started (the end of July) rejecting trackbacks if they were submitted "too rapidly" by the same host. I don't know what the timer is but it is long enough so that it was very difficult to ping everyone that is using Haloscan for trackbacks. I'm sure that they are doing this to try to hold back the tide of trackback spam but it makes the service pretty useless for carnival type posts. Perhaps you can contact them and urge some different solution. Update: Typepad appears to be doing the same thing. Everytime I update the Ark it appears the timers are reset and the long list of MT autogenerated pings fail. Yecchhhh....

Posted by Steve on May 26, 2006 | Comments (16)

May 25, 2006

It's Time for Some Competitive Bird Blogging

I and the Bird #24 is up at Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding.
Even if you are not a birder go check it out! Carel Brest Van Kempen put magnificent effort into this edition and raises the bar for all the carnivals.


This definitely has my vote for most creative carnival of the year!!

Posted by Steve on May 25, 2006

May 24, 2006

Signing Statement

Let's suppose for a moment that the house and senate pass and send to the president for signature immigration legislation that contains these english language requirements:

The White House said the president agrees with two amendments that senators tacked onto the immigration bill, adding that both are ``consistent with'' Bush's views. It added that Bush believes the command of English is the best route to assimilation for immigrants.

On Thursday, the Senate passed a Republican measure that would make English the national language. Moments later, it approved a Democrat-led amendment declaring English a ``common and unifying language.''

It passed the two amendments to add to the comprehensive immigration bill it's expected to take to the House next week.

Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe, who supports ``national'' but not ``common and unifying,'' complained that his colleagues were trying to ``have it both ways.''

The bill already requires illegal immigrants to learn English as a condition of earning legal permanent residency, a step toward citizenship.

We can expect that the decider will add the following signing statement:
The president can exclude himself from the english language requirements particularly when talking about suiciders.

Perhaps we can make speaking english a requirement for national office.

Posted by Steve on May 24, 2006 | Comments (1)

Astounding

75 years of Astounding/Analog covers. A treat for any SF aficionado! Here's one from June 1962:

analog_june_1962_tn_ASF_0379.jpg

Follow the above link to see an enlarged version and the rest of the covers.

Via Eve Tushnet.

Posted by Steve on May 24, 2006

May 23, 2006

The US Leads the World

Yes, something to be proud of!

...one in 136 Americans is behind bars today, including an astounding 12 percent of all black men between the ages of 25 and 29. The United States represents 4.6 percent of the world's population, but houses nearly 23 percent of humanity's prison population.
The US now has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world.

Just why would other folks around the planet want to emulate a social system so dedicated to imprisonment?

Posted by Steve on May 23, 2006

May 22, 2006

Confusion Cleared

Henley is a leftie....it's his meme.

It is possible to read a single brief post at many sites and determine the author's point on the political spectrum fairly accurately. But some, like Henley, are just a bit more complex and prove the point that if you are going to try to use labeling to question someone's credibility it is a good idea to dig just a bit deeper lest it is your own credibility that fades.

Posted by Steve on May 22, 2006

Weekend Plans Simplified

Seems some folks are suggesting that for some there will not be a weekend.

Via Pharyngula who is relieved that his hectic June schedule will be preempted.

Posted by Steve on May 22, 2006

May 21, 2006

A Substantial Host

Looks like Edloe dropped in to host the 113th Carnival of the Cats at IMAO.

Posted by Steve on May 21, 2006

What the World Knows About Your Site

Well, the rest of'm may not know everything about your blog or website but AboutUrl.com makes it easy to find out plenty. Go poke around if you have a few minutes.

Via The Presurfer.

Posted by Steve on May 21, 2006

May 19, 2006

Friday Ark #87

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

We will add your post to the list if you do one of the following:

  • Leave a comment or trackback to this post (Don't panic if you get back an "internal server error" message. Haven't been able to figure out why this is happening but comments still seem to post.). Also note that all comments are now moderated,
  • Use the Carnival Submission Form,
  • Use the Blog Carnival Submission Form,
  • Email Modulator or
  • Our extensive staff finds it during our weekly search of the web

Of course, if our staff goes on strike then we will link only those posts someone tells us about. Time permitting we will continue boardings until the Carnival of the Cats goes up on Sunday.

Do link to the Friday Ark whether you use trackbacks or not.

Visit each border and come back regularly Friday-Sunday to visit new boarders.

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (61 shouts as of 05/18)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 112th edition, 5/14, is up at Watermark. The 113th edition will be hosted by IMAO on 5/21. There are more weekly cats at eatstuff's Weekend Cat Blogging which has many participants who may not be familiar to Ark or Carnival participants. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 23rd edition is up and hosted by birdDC. The 24th edition will be hosted on 5/25 by Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The eigth edition is up at Get Busy Livin', or Get Busy Bloggin'. The 9th edition will be hosted at the end of may by Burning Silo.

Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.

Cats

BirdsDogsInvertebratesOther VertebratesIn MemoriamDidn't Make It
Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat's Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users: Haloscan started (the end of July) rejecting trackbacks if they were submitted "too rapidly" by the same host. I don't know what the timer is but it is long enough so that it was very difficult to ping everyone that is using Haloscan for trackbacks. I'm sure that they are doing this to try to hold back the tide of trackback spam but it makes the service pretty useless for carnival type posts. Perhaps you can contact them and urge some different solution. Update: Typepad appears to be doing the same thing. Everytime I update the Ark it appears the timers are reset and the long list of MT autogenerated pings fail. Yecchhhh....

Posted by Steve on May 19, 2006 | Comments (14)

May 17, 2006

Fare Thee Well, Ramrod!

Elegy for Ramrod

Most never knew his given name.
They called him Ramrod.
Lawrence didn't fit him.
He came down from Oregon,
Prankster sidekick of Cassady,
Kesey and the merry crew,
a silent stoic in a vocable milieu
his heart was stolen by the Grateful Dead.

......

Here's the rest of Hunter's Elegy.

Update: There is more here...scroll down to 5/7 and read up.

Posted by Steve on May 17, 2006

May 16, 2006

Some Psychedelic Relief For Your Stress

Shatner does Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.

Via The Sideshow.

Posted by Steve on May 16, 2006 | Comments (2)

Validate Your Sources

In an editorial kind of calling for more congressional oversight of the NSA this Miami Herald editorial says:

Let's be clear about what this program is and is not. ''The government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval,'' President Bush insisted shortly after the furor was ignited by a story in USA Today. In short, no indiscriminate wiretapping.
Really, these folks consider this quote from bush as a valid source to justify their clarification of what this program is and is not?

The authors should take the advice of their own closing sentence:

We should be well past the time when ''trust me'' is an acceptable response to questions about what the government is up to. That's the way freedom is lost.
Well, yes. But congress has failed to provide so called oversight and the executive branch seems to be out of control. Ample evidence that the concept of checks and balances is severely flawed.

Better than enhanced congressional oversight might be a complete elimination of these rotting organs which seem unconcerned with our freedom and liberty.

Posted by Steve on May 16, 2006 | Comments (1)

May 14, 2006

Mother's Day Cats

They are up at Watermark: The 112th Carnival of the Cats!

Posted by Steve on May 14, 2006

Why hillary Might Be The Next president

Balko explains:

As for Hillary, I was puzzled by all the people who said in 2004 that they couldn't cast the divided government vote for John Kerry because they too feared a Hillary Clinton presidency. I wrote at the time that if anything, a second Bush term would make a Hillary presidency more likely, not less, because by the time Bush had served two terms, conservatives and limited government advocates would be dispirited, the left would be hungry and motivated, and everyone in the middle would have Republicans-in-power fatigue. It's really just about the only scenario under which Hillary could wriggle her way into the White House.

And it's about to happen.

I can't imagine that hillary could be a worse president than w but apparently many in the bush base fear a hillary presidency.

That folks of any ilk fear tweedle dee or tweedle dum in the white house shows that we, the people, have let things get far out of hand. Governments at all levels and in all parts of the world need to be eliminated or pared back to the most basic functions.

Heck, when we are done properly paring them back there really shouldn't be anything left that resembles the monstrosities currently trampling folks.

Posted by Steve on May 14, 2006 | Comments (1)

May 13, 2006

How To Reply to A national security letter Request

This is precisely the way to reply to an fbi national security letter requesting anything!

Posted by Steve on May 13, 2006

May 12, 2006

Friday Ark #86

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

We will add your post to the list if you do one of the following:

  • Leave a comment or trackback to this post (Don't panic if you get back an "internal server error" message. Haven't been able to figure out why this is happening but comments still seem to post.). Also note that all comments are now moderated,
  • Use the Carnival Submission Form,
  • Use the Blog Carnival Submission Form,
  • Email Modulator or
  • Our extensive staff finds it during our weekly search of the web

Of course, if our staff goes on strike then we will link only those posts someone tells us about. Time permitting we will continue boardings until the Carnival of the Cats goes up on Sunday.

Do link to the Friday Ark whether you use trackbacks or not.

Visit each border and come back regularly Friday-Sunday to visit new boarders.

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (61 shouts as of 05/11)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 112th edition is hosted this week by Watermark. There are more weekly cats at eatstuff's Weekend Cat Blogging which has many participants who may not be familiar to Ark or Carnival participants. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 23rd edition is up and hosted by birdDC. The 24th edition will be hosted on 5/25 by Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The eigth edition is up at Get Busy Livin', or Get Busy Bloggin'. The 9th edition will be hosted at the end of may by Burning Silo.

Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.

Cats

DogsBirdsInvertebratesOther VertebratesIn Memoriam
Didn't Make It
Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat's Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users: Haloscan started (the end of July) rejecting trackbacks if they were submitted "too rapidly" by the same host. I don't know what the timer is but it is long enough so that it was very difficult to ping everyone that is using Haloscan for trackbacks. I'm sure that they are doing this to try to hold back the tide of trackback spam but it makes the service pretty useless for carnival type posts. Perhaps you can contact them and urge some different solution. Update: Typepad appears to be doing the same thing. Everytime I update the Ark it appears the timers are reset and the long list of MT autogenerated pings fail. Yecchhhh....

Posted by Steve on May 12, 2006 | Comments (16)

May 11, 2006

Florida Recount Redux

jennifer dunn sets the record straight on who katherine harris was serving during the recount:

Former Republican Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn of Washington was sticking up for Harris, whom she described as a friend. Among her talking points was that Harris had done "yeoman's service for president Bush"* during the 2000 recount. Of course, the official GOP talking point has always been that Harris served no one but the law. "I was just doing my job," Harris likes to say. Nice to hear someone finally say what we know they're thinking.
Yep, it's a little bit clearer now what her job was and it had nothing to do with being a public servant.

Via horsesass.org

Posted by Steve on May 11, 2006

Birdwatching Time

Well, heck, Mike Bergin says it just fine in an early morning email:

Nick of birdDC has thrown down the gauntlet in his excellent presentation of I and the Bird #23. If you can identify 27 birds from the photos he provides, he'll buy you a Peterson's Field Guide. Go easy on him!

Nick notes in a comment that just the first to get all 27 gets a field guide...go win it!

Posted by Steve on May 11, 2006

Kudos to Qwest and Toss the bushies Out on Their Asses

They have no respect for you, your privacy or your freedom. Yet it is the protection of these things, your life, your liberty, your pursuit of happiness that supposedly justifies government.

Governments, as history shows, are not always not frequently good and they can get much worse. For instance, most probably acknowledge that stalinist russia, to use a technical term, sucked.

The ongoing parade of bush administration bad acts seems as if it will never end....why, look no further than the next edition of USA Today for the latest:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
Just go read the rest...

Will we see warrants and probable cause? Nope, likely just the executive order telling folks to break the law, to violate the 4th Amendment. This government need to be eliminated and the companies that are supporting these immoral and unconstitutional programs need to be reorganized, i.e., if there is anything left after they pay the maximum fine/restitution to each individual whose privacy has been compromised.

No matter your political persuasion you should be angry, upset and willing to toss the bastards out because of this type of behavior. It might not be your gang that is using these tools in a few years.

And, yes, kudos to Qwest for saying no!

Via The Left Coaster.

Posted by Steve on May 11, 2006

May 9, 2006

bush Rolls Out the Propaganda A-Team

Henley is not the last to blog about the mighty USDA propaganda machine.

If you are as out of touch as i've obviously been do take a few minutes to go read about your USDA's role in taking it to those pesky terrorists and assisting the great nation of Iran. karl and company have even prepared the words for these esteemed public servants:

Several topics I'd like to talk to you about today--Farm Bill, trade with Japan, WTO, avian flu, animal ID--but before I do, let me touch on a subject people always ask about....progress in Iraq.
Just the question that would be on my front burner if I actually went through the effort to go hear one of these folks make a presentation about something. There is much, much more.

Oh yea, Henley is looking for related jokes.

Posted by Steve on May 9, 2006

2006 Nebula Award Winners

Here they are:

NOVEL
Camouflage, Joe Haldeman (Analog; Ace Books)
NOVELLA
"Magic for Beginners", Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners Small Beer Press; F&SF Sep 2005)
NOVELETTE
"The Faery Handbag", Kelly Link (The Faery Reel Viking; ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling)

SHORT STORY
"I Live With You", Carol Emshwiller (F&SF Mar 2005)
SCRIPT
Serenity, Joss Whedon

ANDRE NORTON AWARD
Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie, Holly Black (Simon & Schuster)
As previously announced, Harlan Ellison was presented the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award, and William F. Nolan was named Author Emeritus. Connie Willis was Toastmaster.
For a while I read every bit of Haldeman I could get my hands on and I'll be headinng to the bookstore at lunch time today to pick up a copy of this one.

Harlan Ellison, in the picture on the Locus site (link above), definitely looks like he's gone a bit past emeritus.

Yes! Serenity, my favorite movie of 2005 received the Nebula for best script!

Via Amy Sturgis at Liberty & Power. She has a couple link about why some of you might care that Serenity is a winner. Warning: the movie review she links to is written by Orson Scott Card whose Ender's Game series is one I still reread but whose views on social issues and politics are pretty broken.

Posted by Steve on May 9, 2006

May 8, 2006

The Fun You Can Have With Your New MAC

Finally, a look at the real Ellison.

The first image is definitely a candidate for one of those ever popular in the blogosphere caption contets. Is he a burnt out nerd, a never advanced junior accountant, a creepy web voyeur....?

On the other hand, there is the Mistress of Sarcasm,....!

Posted by Steve on May 8, 2006

Another Reason to Toss'm Out

Just because Cspan shows them debating the issues from time to time doesn't mean that they really are:

The Senate just needs to pass "anything to get us into conference," where the real decisions will be made, House telecommunications subcommittee chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said Tuesday at a telecom forum hosted by National Journal's Technology Daily.
It is bad enough when these scoundrels mess with our lives in the open, on the floor of the house or senate, but this makes it pretty clear that what happens in the open, bad as it usually is, is just window dressing. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that this is just a republithug thing. Put the demothiefs in charge and you will have more of the same.

Via MyDD via The Sideshow.

Posted by Steve on May 8, 2006

May 7, 2006

Kitty Carnival Time

Claudius, Ellie, and Nicholson are hosting the 111th Carnival of the Cats at Pages Turned.

Posted by Steve on May 7, 2006

May 5, 2006

Friday Ark #85

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

We will add your post to the list if you do one of the following:

  • Leave a comment or trackback to this post (Don't panic if you get back an "internal server error" message. Haven't been able to figure out why this is happening but comments still seem to post.). Also note that all comments are now moderated,
  • Use the Carnival Submission Form,
  • Use the Blog Carnival Submission Form,
  • Email Modulator or
  • Our extensive staff finds it during our weekly search of the web

Of course, if our staff goes on strike then we will link only those posts someone tells us about. Time permitting we will continue boardings until the Carnival of the Cats goes up on Sunday.

Do link to the Friday Ark whether you use trackbacks or not.

Visit each border and come back regularly Friday-Sunday to visit new boarders.

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (61 shouts as of 05/04)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 111th edition will be hosted this week by Pages Turned. There are more weekly cats at eatstuff's Weekend Cat Blogging which has many participants who may not be familiar to Ark or Carnival participants. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 22nd edition is up and hosted by Home Bird Notes. The 23rd edition will be hosted on 5/11 by birdDC.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The eigth edition is up at Get Busy Livin', or Get Busy Bloggin'.

Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.

Cats

InvertebratesDogsBirdsOther VertebratesIn MemoriamDidn't Make It
Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat's Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users: Haloscan started (the end of July) rejecting trackbacks if they were submitted "too rapidly" by the same host. I don't know what the timer is but it is long enough so that it was very difficult to ping everyone that is using Haloscan for trackbacks. I'm sure that they are doing this to try to hold back the tide of trackback spam but it makes the service pretty useless for carnival type posts. Perhaps you can contact them and urge some different solution. Update: Typepad appears to be doing the same thing. Everytime I update the Ark it appears the timers are reset and the long list of MT autogenerated pings fail. Yecchhhh....

Posted by Steve on May 5, 2006 | Comments (7)

May 4, 2006

ID Quote of the Day

Eugene is pretty stony ground for ID to take hold in. Now, if they proposed that life was designed by a coven of anarchist Wiccans riding solar powered unicycles, maybe they'd have a shot.
A commenter at Pharyngula.
Posted by Steve on May 4, 2006

Laura's Story

Apparently Laura has a slightly revised version of hubby's mission accomplished photo-op...we celebrated it a few days ago - the one where shriveled did the jumpsuit.

Via Jaquandor via Drum.

Posted by Steve on May 4, 2006

United 93: The Movie

For a number of reasons United 93 has not been on my list of movies to see. First, most of the movie has to be fictionalized and this was too important an event for such fictionalization so soon. Second, I object to the commercialization of the event. Yes, I know that we use various fictionalized versions of our past to explore the surrounding issues and as a form of catharsis. But, again, this is still too soon! It is like yesterday.

On the other hand, if I were to change my mind something like David's review would do it:

The movie doesn’t come across in any way as exploitation and while it doesn’t work to demonize the terrorists, it doesn’t sanitize them or make them into sympathetic figures, either. It just comes across as a retelling of events without any sense of melodrama. I don’t think we should all live out the rest of our lives mired in depression because of the events of that one day, but for anyone who has managed to distance themselves too completely from 9/11, United 93 should act as a reminder of the day that shook us from our collective complacency.
David and I disagree on many aspects of this administration's post 9/11 actions but I do agree that we should not forget or forgive what happened on that day.

Read David's review and the many others that will be circulating. It may or may not be a movie for you.

Posted by Steve on May 4, 2006

May 3, 2006

Ouch....Huh?

It is oft best just to ignore some of this stuff but I am from time to time bemused by Reynold's take on some things. For instance, this supposed zinger from Hewitt:

The Bush Adminsitration is the definition of openness compared to the New York Times.
Caused an "ouch" to flow through the instafingers.

If only it were more true than it is it might deserve an "ouch" but Hewitt's just blowing smoke or, perhaps, transcribing a talking point of the day. How not open is the bush administration:

As the Bush administration has dramatically accelerated the classification of information as "top secret" or "confidential," one office is refusing to report on its annual activity in classifying documents: the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003, requires all agencies and "any other entity within the executive branch" to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents. More than 80 agencies have collectively reported to the National Archives that they made 15.6 million decisions in 2004 to classify information, nearly double the number in 2001, but Cheney continues to insist he is exempt.

The New York Times has a long way to go to catch up with these folks.

Secret governments deserve to be tossed out on their behinds!

Posted by Steve on May 3, 2006

May 2, 2006

He Returns This Summer!

Here is a nice long trailer for Superman Returns....opens this summer.

Via Cynical-C Blog.

Posted by Steve on May 2, 2006

May 1, 2006

shriveled

PZ and Digby make note of the 3rd anniversary of mission accomplished.

When the once mighty are on their last legs it is time to be extra wary....

Posted by Steve on May 1, 2006