July 31, 2006

Days End...

...a moment of escape.

Posted by Steve on July 31, 2006

Capture the Essence...

...of those most mysterious and wondrous of all creatures, cats.*

The 123rd Carnival of the Cats is up at The Scratching Post!

*No offense intended to those wonderous and mysterious cephalopods, other invertebrates, dogs, birds, etc., ....

Posted by Steve on July 31, 2006

Crass Quote Of The Day: Making Housing Affordable

From a federal reserve economist:

Firefighters who want to live in high-priced cities can work two jobs, said W. Michael Cox, chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “I think it’s great,” he said. “It gives you portfolio diversification in your income.”
If the grammar wasn't so good you might think he was from Crawford instead of Dallas.

That firefighter's family probably already has three jobs: the firefighters, domestic engineer and the out of house job the other partner has. And this guy wants them to go for a fourth?

A much better response on the firefighter's part will be to choose a city to work in that pays them enough to live there. Of course, this might mean that some cities will go without firefighters until they pay them enough to live in the million dollar + condos that seem to be the dominant form of new housing sprouting up in the big cities.

Perhaps the congress critters and other legislative bodies need to get out of the marriage definition business and realize that in the future it will take 3, 4 or more adults in a family to both earn an adequate income and properly care for the family's children or that it might take 2 or more families living in a house or apartment to make it affordable.

Via Kevin Drum who notes the euphemism here:

"portfolio diversification in your income."...means working two jobs because housing costs are too high. Brilliant.

Yea, I still think Cox might be from Crawford.

Posted by Steve on July 31, 2006 | Comments (1)

July 30, 2006

Passing 8th Grade Science

I just did it!

You Passed 8th Grade Science
Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!
Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

Surely, you too can pass. But could the authors of the test pass?

Via Genetics and Health.

Posted by Steve on July 30, 2006

July 28, 2006

How Much Fun Can You Have?

In yesterday's Seattle Times always entertaining columnist Ron Judd answers questions from readers and departs just a bit into serious business:

Q: I'm 12 and have lived in this state all my life. So far, my mom has never seen fit to take me to a county fair. I think she assumes I would be bored or something. Is she right?

A: First off, send me your mom's name and I'll forward it to the proper authorities. There's little excuse for this shameful behavior. What's with your mom, anyway? She must be from Snohomish.

County fairs are as much fun as you can have in this country without having Congress enact special legislation to make it illegal, immoral, or both.

Give them time...

You can work to make them critters get real jobs!

Posted by Steve on July 28, 2006

Friday Ark #97

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 (moderated) or trackback (moderated) 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.).
  • 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. (71 shouts as of 07/27)

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 122th edition, 7/23 is up at Creatures of the Earth. The 123nd edition will be hosted by The Scratching Post on 7/30. 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 28th edition is up and hosted by Bogbumper The 29th edition will be hosted on 8/3 by Alis Volat Propiis.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 10th edition is up at Science and Sensibility. The 11th edition will be hosted July 31st by Words & Pictures.

Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.

Cats

DogsOther VertebratesInvertebratesBirdsIn MemoriamDidn't Make ItExceptions (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 July 28, 2006 | Comments (12)

July 27, 2006

On The Road

My well-thumbed Signet edition of Kerouac's On the Road will probably fall apart when next read and it is close to time to re-read this dazzling burst of adrenaline that fired so many, many years ago.

T'm going to wait until next year to read this story again and I'll leave the old Signet edition on the shelf. Instead I'm going to buy the unedited scroll version that will be released next year!

...Kerouac wrote his breakthrough novel ``On the Road" in a three-week frenzy of creativity in spring 1951, typing the story without paragraphs or page breaks onto a 119-foot scroll of nearly translucent paper.

n fact, the Lowell native revised the book many times before it was published six years later, and while the scroll came to symbolize the spontaneity of the Beat Generation, the early, unedited version of the novel never reached the public.

Now, in time to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the novel's publication, the version of ``On the Road" that Kerouac wrote on the scroll will be published next year in book form for the first time, said John Sampas of Lowell, the executor of the writer's literary estate and the brother of his third wife, Stella. It will include some sections that had been cut from the novel because of references to sex or drugs.

The scroll contains numerous passages that were edited out of the book and uses the original names of characters who were closely modeled on friends of Kerouac, including fellow writers William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.

This is a must read for anyone who participated in or is interested in the culture that spawned the Beat Generation, the sixties, great music and much, much more.

Hey, Cassidy will be at the wheel!

Via Bookslut.

Posted by Steve on July 27, 2006

July 26, 2006

Looking For A Video?

Go dabble:

Gather and organize your own videos, your contacts' (people you know) videos, and all of the videos in the Dabble database.
It is certainly a lot more fun than playing in Telco Land.

Posted by Steve on July 26, 2006

Once Upon A Time...

...we lived in a free country.

Yes, invasive species can be a problem but this seems over the top.

Posted by Steve on July 26, 2006

July 25, 2006

A Stumbleanche

For reasons I haven't had time to figure out Modulator is experience a Stumbleanche. Not quite the scale of an Instalanche or an Atriolanche but it looks the same:

stumbleanche 2006-07-25.gif

Most of the interest is focused on this Truth In Labeling post from two years ago.

Update: Well, it got even better as the day wore on. Here is the graph 9 hours later. Here's to the day that the 3700 visitors represented in the graph will be a daily occurrence!

Posted by Steve on July 25, 2006 | Comments (1)

July 24, 2006

Dumb Down Your Guy

Sleep with him:

When men spend the night with a bed mate their sleep is disturbed, whether they make love or not, and this impairs their mental ability the next day.
So, is there a strategy to living together before marriage...?

The study also provides pointers on how to better remember dreams:

Bed sharing also affected dream recall. Women remembered more after sleeping alone and men recalled best after sex.
And makes an argument for separate beds:
"Historically, we have never been meant to sleep in the same bed as each other. It is a bizarre thing to do. Sleep is the most selfish thing you can do and it's vital for good physical and mental health. Sharing the bed space with someone who is making noises and who you have to fight with for the duvet is not sensible. If you are happy sleeping together that's great, but if not there is no shame in separate beds."
If noise is a big issue separate beds it doesn't seem as if separate beds will do the trick unless they are in separate rooms.

This does suggest that there might have been more behind the separate beds in those old TV series than simple modesty. They wanted their men bright eyed and ready to work every morning!

Personally, I'd rather be just a bit impaired every morning.

Via Truthdig.

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

The Essence of Professional Football?

This is downright surreal!

Here is the backstory:

First, Saskatchewan Roughrider’s (CFL) defensive tackle Scott Schultz hammered Toronto Argonaut quarterback Spergon Wynn hard enough to rip off his helmet and lay him flat on the turf.
Just imagine them rolling out the dancers at the 8-minute mark of a quarter!

The reality is that the injury happened on the last play before halftime.

Posted by Steve on July 24, 2006

Watch That Music Video Again

Or for the first time.

Stylus Magazine offers up their Top 100 Music Videos of All Time complete with YouTube links for your viewing/listening pleasure.

Via Tegan.

Posted by Steve on July 24, 2006

July 23, 2006

Make the Spammers Pay

Oh joy, paying bills today.

There are a bunch of spam snail mails in the inbox and this seems like a great time to join Corsair the Rational Pirate in a reasonable campaign to make the spammers pay a bit more for intruding into our lives:

Whenever you get junk mail promising you a new credit card and it comes with one of those postage paid return envelopes, go ahead and send it back in. Just the envelope, I mean. You can also fill the envelope with the credit card offers from the other companies that you got on the same day since you, like me probably get more than one per day.
This also moves this crap from your waste stream back into theirs.

f you really want to hurt them, and you should, use cash as often as possible. Everytime you do this the financial companies lose money and there is one less entry for you in various databases.

Posted by Steve on July 23, 2006

July 22, 2006

Water 'shroom

Or so it looks to me:

watershroom.jpg

Letter your imagination soar as you look through dozens of liquid sculptures by Martin Waugh.

Via In the Agora.

Posted by Steve on July 22, 2006 | Comments (1)

July 21, 2006

Into A Recovery Program....Now

Let's put Arthur in charge for a while:

If I had my way, I would immediately order every single one of them out of government and out of public life, and into a War Lovers Anonymous recovery program. And there they can spend their remaining days, and leave the rest of us to sort out our differences and conflicts as best we can. We could not possibly do worse -- and I dare to think and hope we would do significantly better.
A day should be long enough to put these folks into padded cells and I doubt Arthur would want to spend more time in one of these immoral roles...though it might take one more day to dismantle a few of the bureaucracies that weigh so heavily on our future.

BTW, we should all be reading Arthur daily!

Posted by Steve on July 21, 2006

Friday Ark #96

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 (moderated) or trackback (moderated) 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.).
  • 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. (68 shouts as of 07/20)

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 121th edition, 7/16 is up at Musings.... The 122nd edition will be hosted by Creatures of the Earth on 7/23. 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 28th edition is up and hosted by Bogbumper The 29th edition will be hosted on 8/3 by Alis Volat Propiis.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 10th edition is up at Science and Sensibility. The 11th edition will be hosted the end of July by Words & Pictures.

Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.

Update: Blogs of Summer is taking nominations. There are always lots of kitties on the Ark so head on over and nominate!

Cats

DogsBirdsOther VertebratesInvertebratesIn 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 July 21, 2006 | Comments (12)

July 20, 2006

SWATting Poker

These guys or their analogs in your community may be visiting a poker game near you:

New_DallasSWAT01_800x600.jpg

Never mind that governments shouldn't be raiding poker games in the first place but why a SWAT team??

If your local government is whining about needing more tax money you might suggest that they dismantle these thug units and reallocate the money to a meaningful human service.

Via The Agitator.

Original picture source.

Posted by Steve on July 20, 2006

Owls, Falcons, Feasts, Babies and More

I and the Bird #28 is up at bogbumper!

Enjoy.

Posted by Steve on July 20, 2006

July 19, 2006

What's the Point?

It depends on what you are talking about.

For instance, if you are talking about the point comprising all possible time lines for all possible universes then the point comprises the tenth dimension. Here is a great flash animation that will help you understand the point in the first, fourth, seventh and tenth dimensions and what goes on in the other dimensions as well.

You may have much more interesting dreams if you study this right before bed! Oh, there may be some altered states of consciousness in which you can better visualize these concepts.

Via the apostropher.

Posted by Steve on July 19, 2006

Too Much Time On Your Hands?

You can solve this problem by developing some advanced button pushing skills.

On the other hand you shouldn't push the button.

Via Tegan.

Posted by Steve on July 19, 2006

All In Bad Taste

Well, well, there is a new gropinator. Yes, bush's performances at the G-8 were pretty disgusting and we still have to restrain our gag reflex for over two more years.

There is, though, some temporary relief available. Steven Taylor says:

I’m sorry, there’s something extremely creepy about a 54 year-old man driving up to a group of girls and saying “jump in my car, I want to take you home.”
He is understating the reality!

Go watch this really bad video.

Posted by Steve on July 19, 2006

July 18, 2006

Will Scientology Lose Funding?

Former cash machine Tom Cruise will likely be getting a pay cut:

But Cruise — tainted by tabloid buzz — isn't delivering as consistently and that may cost him big. This year “Mission: Impossible III” proved to be the most expensive and lowest-yielding of the franchise grossing only $133 million domestic on a $150 million budget.
If the product isn't selling it is pretty hard to justify giving 30% of the gross to one actor.

Any way you cut it there will be less money for the dude to tithe.

Posted by Steve on July 18, 2006

July 17, 2006

Work An American Won't Do

bush:

...which leads to the fact there's a whole industry that has sprung up around moving laborers to jobs that Americans won't do.
Here is one German immigrant fulfilling his dreams...love'm or hate'm this is funny!

Via The Tree.

Posted by Steve on July 17, 2006

July 16, 2006

The Cats Are Having A Blast...

...at the 121st Carnival of the Cats which is now up at Musings!

Posted by Steve on July 16, 2006

July 15, 2006

Feeding At The Trough

Well, it looks like one porker has replaced another:

And far from trying to put the brakes on lobbyists and the money they channel into Republican coffers, Mr. Boehner, who has portrayed his ties to Washington lobbyists as something to be proud of, has stepped on the gas.
Let's stop giving these congress critters our money to dole out to the highest bidder.

Via Kevin Drum who probably doesn't agree with cuttinng off congressional access to our wallets.

Posted by Steve on July 15, 2006

July 14, 2006

Friday Ark #95

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 (moderated) or trackback (may be broken) 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.).
  • 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. (67 shouts as of 07/13)

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 120th edition, 7/9 is up at Music and Cats. The 121st edition will be hosted by Musings... on 7/16. 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 27th edition is up and hosted by 10,000 Birds. The 28th edition will be hosted on 7/20 by Bogbumper.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 10th edition is up at Science and Sensibility. The 11th edition will be hosted the end of July by Words & Pictures.

Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.

Cats

July 13, 2006

Rain In Salem For the First Time

Well, for the first time since 1892:

....it hadn't rained in Oregon's capital on July 12 since record-keeping began in 1892.

Thirty years later, in 1928, the official weather station began keeping weather data at Salem Municipal Airport, and the streak continued.

Nope, it doesn't rain all the time in the Pacific Northwest.

Posted by Steve on July 13, 2006

July 12, 2006

Quote of the Day: How to Live

There is no one right way for people to live.
Daniel Quinn, Beyond Civilization, 183.
Posted by Steve on July 12, 2006

Irritation in the Doctor's Office

In one of the many interesting posts in this weeks Grand Rounds keagirl writes about patient behavior that irritates her. A couple of her irritants are a bit amusing given many of our common experiences at the doctor's office.

First,

Cellphones: I cannot describe how irking it is to enter the examining room and find the patient talking on the cellphone. ....

Even ruder is when I am talking to the patient and the cellphone rings, and (s)he actually ANSWERS the damn thing in the middle of the consultation. I wait for the (usually inane) conversation to end while silently fuming inside.

Last first. I agree 100% about the patient that answers their cellphone in the midst of a consultation. Hell I'd be tempted to make them an ex-patient!

However, and I'm sure Dr. keagirl promptly attends to her patients after they have arrived in the examining room, it seems perfectly reasonable that a patient might make a phone call while waiting for the Doctor to arrive. Especially after browsing the same year old magazines that were in the rack lthe ast time they were there, reading all the patient literature, studying all the nifty body diagrams on the wall, and still no Doctor. Hey, if the Doctor isn't attending to you in 5 minutes or so do what makes sense to you to properly utilize your scarce time. Very few will get to the cellphone stage if attended to promptly.

Second,

Tardiness: this is a frequent event. If the patient is just a few minutes late (10 or 15 mins), I will see them. However, if they are 20 to 30 mins late, and they haven't called ahead to let us know, I want them to reschedule, and I am astounded at how many patients get thoroughly unhappy about this.
Yep, it is perfectly reasonable to expect us to call ahead if we are going to be late. On the other hand, what is our recourse when the Doctor keeps us sitting in the waiting room 10, 20, 30, 45 minutes or longer past our scheduled time? How about the Doctor calling the patient and telling the patient that they are behind schedule? How about a 50% or 100% discount if the Dr. keeps someone waiting more than 30 minutes past the scheduled time. Yea, I know it would mostly benefit the insurance companies but the gesture can be important.

Many human irritants can look a lot different when seen through other eyes.

Posted by Steve on July 12, 2006

July 9, 2006

Demolition Cats

The 120th editon of the Carnival of Cats is up at Music and Cats.

Posted by Steve on July 9, 2006

July 8, 2006

...a series of tubes...

stevens' deep understanding of the internet becomes a song.

Remember that you the people have put trillions of dollars in the hands of drones like stevens.

Via boingboing.

Posted by Steve on July 8, 2006

July 7, 2006

Friday Ark #94

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 (moderated) or trackback (may be broken) 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.).
  • 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. (66 shouts as of 07/06)

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 119th edition, 7/2 is up at Watermark. The 120th edition will be hosted by Music and Cats on 7/9. 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 27th edition is up and hosted by 10,000 Birds. The 28th edition will be hosted on 7/20 by Bogbumper.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 10th edition is up at Science and Sensibility. The 11th edition will be hosted the end of July by Words & Pictures.

Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.

Cats

InvertebratesDogsBirdsOther 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 July 7, 2006 | Comments (12)

July 6, 2006

I and the Bird First Anniversary

Mike has put together a fine 27th edition of I and the Bird to celebrate the Carnival's first anniversary!

Fly on over and explore questions like :

  • Why I watch birds
  • Why I blog
  • Why I blog about birds
  • Why I watch birds and blog about them

Oh yea, you'll find plenty of pics amidst the interesting answers.

Posted by Steve on July 6, 2006

International Kissing Traffic

Why an upward blip in traffic today?

Ahhh, of course, it is International Kissing Day time again!

Kiss a friend, kiss a stranger!

It doesn't look like Amber has a 2006 update yet so here is a link to her post last year.

Posted by Steve on July 6, 2006 | Comments (1)

July 5, 2006

There's No Place Like Home

Even if it should be closed down...good for chuckles! (Requires Flash)

Via The Tree.

Posted by Steve on July 5, 2006

July 4, 2006

think....

Yep,.....think small!

Via Tegan; more here.

Posted by Steve on July 4, 2006

These Truths...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
It is long past time to institute new governmental structures throughout the world.

We should, though, begin at home.

Posted by Steve on July 4, 2006

July 3, 2006

Independent Kitties

Join the furry fireworks at the 119th Carnival of the Cats - Independence Edition!

Posted by Steve on July 3, 2006

Need A Bug Fix?

These folks can help you out:

We are an online community of naturalists who enjoy learning about and sharing our observations of insects, spiders, and other related creatures.

We enjoy the opportunity to instill in others the fascination and appreciation that we share for the intricate lives of these oft-maligned creatures.

And, they have great pictures, e.g.,:

Giant Redheaded Centipede - Scolopendra heros (Click on Image for full size: 115K)

Via i-pets.com

Posted by Steve on July 3, 2006

July 2, 2006

Good News From New Jersey...

...with some odd side effects and interesting lessons.

The good citizens of New Jersey will probably not thrive without their government as they've been trained to believe it is necessary instead of educated to live as free human beings.

As to the some of the side effects and lessons:

  1. "...will see the state close its parks, beaches..."The folks can just continue to use these facilities. They belong to the people not the state.
  2. "...will see the state close ... and, depending on the outcome of a court decision, possibly the 12 Atlantic City casinos..."Hmmm, are these government agencies? I guess if you have a a governor with a name like corzine they probably are mafia government agencies.
  3. Third, they did shut down the mafia operated numbers game, the state lottery. Are all the lottery outlets in New Jersey operated by state employees? Besides which this ripoff is a major revenue source for the state and the close down is over an alleged revenue shortfall. Yep, bright government type...
  4. So called "Essential operations, like the prisons, the state police, child protection services and mental hospitals, will continue to run during the shutdown." Apparently 55% of the states employees work in these essential areas. Why would anyone want to live in such a dismal culture?
  5. It must be hard on the 36,000 layed off non-essential employees to have that thrown in their face. Perhaps it will be enough of a kick in the butt to get them to go find meaningful work on their own! Oh yea, since these are non-essential functions why the hell do the jobs even exist??
Yep, ol' corzine would probably more than cover the $4.5 billion shortfall by simply closing down all the non-essential functions.

Via Blonde Sense.

Posted by Steve on July 2, 2006

July 1, 2006

Statues

Some wierd, some offensive, some disturbing, some NWS, and some, well, decide for yourself. There are more linked in the comments.

Via Metafilter.

Posted by Steve on July 1, 2006