October 30, 2006

The Elements According to Google

This periodic table of the elements has been built by using the top Google image result for each element.

It appears to be a static view view from September 20, 2006. Perhaps omeone with more skill than I will enhance this nifty idea to update in real time.

Via grow-a-brain.

Posted by Steve on October 30, 2006 | Comments (1)

October 27, 2006

Friday Ark #110

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 add boarders all day Friday plus intermittently on Saturday and Sunday so visit frequently.

Do link to the Ark every week!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Update (10/28 4:30 PM GMT): The Ark Staff is traveling. No more boardings until late tonight or tomorrow.

Cats

Dogs

  • Val's Bien: Casey Has a New Toy
  • Duck Pond: Friday Night Dog Blog - Heads or Tails: Sasha and Dexter do not seem to mind
  • Burning Silo: a nice design: Sabrina checks it out...
  • Dog Blog: Dogs 280-286
  • Echidne Of The Snakes: Friday Cat and Dog Blogging: Spinoza's cat and Barry's dogs
  • WoodSong: Dogsand Those Who Love Them
  • Ironicus Maximus: Friday Hound Blogging: Al is reserved
  • Good Nonsense: Friday, uh, Kayle Blogging
  • Maggie's Meanderings: Roxie
  • Grits for Breakfast: Prison Pups
  • Old Controller: Seymour's Heartworms Are Persistant
  • Pop Culture Gadabout: Weekend Pet Pic: Kyan Pup celebrated his 11 month birthday; boarded 10/28
  • Athenamama: Happy Birthday Papa boarded 2006-10-29

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

Birds

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (73 shouts as of 10/19)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 135th edition, 10/22, is up at Catcall. The 136th edition will be hosted by Watermark on 10/29. There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging hosted on 10/28 by KAYAKSOUP . 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 35th edition is up and hosted by Migrations. The 36th edition will be hosted on 11/9 by Words & Pictures.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 13th edition is up at Deep Sea News. The 14th edition will be hosted at the end of October by The Neurophilosopher's Blog.

For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat's Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I have, though, for the past month been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on October 27, 2006 | Comments (8)

October 26, 2006

Birds of a Feather

I and the Bird #35 is up at Migrations.

Check out the "charismatic and inspiring avifauna."

Posted by Steve on October 26, 2006

October 25, 2006

Give Us Some Congressional Accountability

Accountability?

This is not something that our congress critters seem to want. Not accountability, not the transparency provided by public debate of the legislation they choose to enact.

If a given piece of legislation or a specific appropriation is important enough that federal congressional action is appropriate then it seems it should be important enough to be debated and voted upon as a single issue, as a single appropriation.

Congress should eliminate earmarks and eliminate amendments unrelated to a primary bill. Any piece of legislation should address one and only one issue. For example, the recently enacted and signed internet gambling legislation should not have been part of the port security legislation. As Declan McCullagh notes:

If this happened only rarely, perhaps we could forgive our elected representatives for gluing unrelated amendments onto a proposal that's destined to become law. (With a tight election just weeks away, how many politicians have the mettle to vote against "port security"?)

But the problem is that the technique has become commonplace, meaning that even the sniping sessions that have come to define debate in the U.S. Congress are bypassed. Voters also lose a chance to learn how our supposed public servants vote on specific topics, rather than on a 300-page bill with scores of unrelated components.

Which, of course, is precisely the point. Because politicians dislike being held accountable for their actions--specific votes can be compiled into embarrassing scorecards and inconvenient voting records--they prefer to lump everything together. The U.S. Senate Web site offers an official definition of the practice: a "Christmas tree bill," meaning unrelated amendments that adorn legislation.

For more examples of Christmas tree bills see the rest of Declan's post.

If congress is unwilling to hold their debates, to pass legislation in the light of public scrutiny then we must ask who congress represents and whether congress should be allowed to continue to exist as it currently operates.

Posted by Steve on October 25, 2006

October 24, 2006

w the Symptom

Arthur Silber on bush:

And all this is not because of George W. Bush, although he has hastened events. How could it be remotely conceivable that such an utterly ridiculous figure would bring down the most powerful nation in the world, even with the aid of his corrupt cabal? He, and they, could not; he, too, is a symptom of the rot that has been eroding the country's foundations for at least a century. Do you think so little of the United States that you truly believe the country you imagine still exists could be destroyed by this?

The rest just gets better!

Posted by Steve on October 24, 2006

Stay. The. Course.

Crime & Federalism links to a couple videos on bush's stay the course policies.

It is pretty disheartening to hear the bushites trying to explain how changing tactics on the ground proves that they have never had a 'stay the course' strategy. Clearly they never have and do not now know the difference between strategy and tactics. Unfortunately, and with some thanks to the ongoing successes of the American education system, large segments of the population, including lots of talk radio hosts, will drink this kool-aid.

Mark Silva argues that, well, stay the course is still the strategy.

Posted by Steve on October 24, 2006

October 23, 2006

Sweeping Out the Junk

A great view of the throat's little sweepers, the cilia, and a round, mucous secreting goblet cell:

Trachea.jpg
(Click on image for a larger view.)

Unfortunately, there haven't been any postings at Artsy Science since May.

Posted by Steve on October 23, 2006

October 21, 2006

Twins - Learn Some Genetics

The mother of the twins on the left is mixed race and Genetics and Health which provides a very general overview of the involved genetics.

On the right is a different set of twins whose parents are both mixed race. Gene Expression has the nitty gritty details.

twins_alicia-jasmin-singerl.jpg

twinspic.jpg


















Posted by Steve on October 21, 2006

The divider

Today, president bush noted in his weekly radio address:

The terrorists are trying to divide America and break our will, and we must not allow them to succeed.
Gosh, the dramatic division of the American people is one of the bushublican's great success stories and here he is trying to blame someone else.

Go figure.

Posted by Steve on October 21, 2006

October 20, 2006

Friday Ark #109

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 add boarders all day Friday plus intermittently on Saturday and Sunday so visit frequently.

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Update: Send your support to Princess Gracie! Update here.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Invertebrates

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (73 shouts as of 10/19)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 134th edition, 10/15, is up atHouse of (Mostly) Black Cats. The 135th edition will be hosted by Catcall on 10/22. There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging hosted on 10/21 by I Got Two Shoes . 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 34th edition is up and hosted by Tortoise Trail. The 35th edition will be hosted on 10/26 by Migration.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 13th edition is up at Deep Sea News. The 14th edition will be hosted at the end of October by The Neurophilosopher's Blog.

For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat's Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I have, though, for the past month been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on October 20, 2006 | Comments (10)

October 19, 2006

Protecting Us...

...from mass destruction math instruction:

New York October 19

A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carryingweapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a problem for us," Gonzalez said. "They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns,' but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle.'

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better Weapons of Math Instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes." White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President during his entire administration.

Blatently stolen from a mailing list.

Posted by Steve on October 19, 2006 | Comments (1)

October 18, 2006

The Eye of Mordor is Upon You

According to rick santorum:

Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been drawn to Iraq instead.

Santorum used the analogy from one of his favorite books, J.R.R. Tolkien's 1950s fantasy classic “Lord of the Rings,” to put an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq into terms any school kid could easily understand.

“As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,” Santorum said, describing the tool the evil Lord Sauron used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.

“It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S.,” Santorum continued. “You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States.”

James Joyner notes:

I’ve got to admit, I’d never thought of it that way before. . . .

.....

It increasingly appears that Santorum’s Yoda-like wisdom will have to come from the sidelines,...

There are a lot of other folks that will not see this quite the way that santorum would like and, unfortunately, his wisdom is anything but Yoda-like.

The eyes that were drawn to Iraq 5 years ago pretty much all lived in Washington, DC. So I suppose this makes sense if santorum is equating Mordor with the US.

Many of us also would prefer that those eyes do not dwell often on the United States. Alas, even as they have put Americans in harms way, created chaos and death in Iraq, allowed Americans to torture others, etc., their eyes have not strayed far from home. They have had time to bring us the patriot act, the military commisions act and a myriad of other encroachments on the Constitution, liberty and freedom of the American people.

Update (10/20): Colbert agrees that santorum must be equating Morder with the US.

Posted by Steve on October 18, 2006 | Comments (2)

A Commercial History of the Personal Computer

If you haven't already seen this go now to A Brief History of Computers, As Seen in Old TV Adds put together with commentary by Harry McCracken at PC World's Techblog!

It's been said that the average American will see two million TV commercials by the time he or she turns 65. Doing some quick math in my head, I believe that means that I've seen...well, a terrifyingly large number of commercials for PCs and related products over the past 26 years or so. You too, maybe.

One of the many perversely fascinating things about YouTube is that its users have uploaded a remarkable percentage of those ads to the site, including both famous and obscure examples. Watch enough of them, in the right order, and what you have is a history of the PC in American life.

Well, perhaps you should wait until you get home from workas you might want to spend just a bit too much time watching this fascinating collection of commercials.

As cool as many of these ads are Americans might get just a slight feeling of having been short changed if they check out the example of why the author did not include commercials from Europe in his selections:

Q: Where are these commercials from?
A: The U.S., as far as I know. Rule one of European computer commercials: They're too dirty for American TV.

I don't agree with the 'dirty' description at all but, yes, this one is probably not work friendly.

Posted by Steve on October 18, 2006

October 17, 2006

The shrub

Watch conversations with the shrub.

Via Why Now.

Posted by Steve on October 17, 2006

If You Have Young Children...

...turn off the television!

As a final point, although as discussed our results do not definitively prove that early childhood television watching is an important trigger for autism, we believe our results provide sufficient support for the possibility that until further research can be conducted it might be prudent to act as if it were. page 42
You should turn off the TV for your children anyway but this is certainly another great reason to do so.

Via /.Science

Posted by Steve on October 17, 2006

George Will Has Lost Count

As noted here a while back:

The us congress has passed legislation which prohibits US banking institutions from processing credit card and funds transfer transactions by once free residents of the United States with internet gambling companies.
Now president w has signed the legislation.

George Will rips the new prohibition and provides some detail on which slime balls are benefitting.

Unfortunately George can't count:

Perhaps Prohibition II is being launched because Prohibition I worked so well at getting rid of gin. Or maybe the point is to reassure social conservatives that Republicans remain resolved to purify Americans' behavior. Incorrigible cynics will say Prohibition II is being undertaken because someone stands to make money from interfering with other people making money.
Surely, Prohibition II is the failed war on drugs and this gambling stupidity might reasonably be called Prohibition III. Except, that as Will points out:
Forty-eight states (all but Hawaii and Utah) have some form of legalized gambling. Forty-two states have lottery monopolies. Thirty-four states rake in part of the take from casino gambling, slot machines or video poker.
Hardly seems to qualify as a prohibition does it? Nevertheless the federal action reeks of the same broken rationales as Prohibition I and the horrendous war on drugs.

When a foreign government or an al quaeda kills Americans, destroys their lives, our response has been clear and strong: see WWII and Afghanistan. If a foreign government had ruined as many American lives as the war on drugs there would be a massive outcry to obliterate said foreign government. Why do we give our local, state and federal governments a pass?

Via A Stitch In Haste.

Posted by Steve on October 17, 2006

October 16, 2006

Quote for Today

Violence is crafted into action by those seeking to control others.

Carolyn Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story, 1997, 217.

Posted by Steve on October 16, 2006

October 14, 2006

Happy 2nd Birthday...

...to Middle-Fork!

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

October 13, 2006

Friday Ark #108

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 add boarders all day Friday plus intermittently on Saturday and Sunday so visit frequently.

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Dogs

Invertebrates

Birds

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (73 shouts as of 10/12)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 133rd edition, 10/8, is up at Curiouser and Curiouser. The 133rd edition will be hosted by The House of the (Mostly) Black Cats on 10/15. There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging hosted on 10/14 by Rosa's Yummy Yums . 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 34th edition is up and hosted by Tortoise Trail. The 35th edition will be hosted on 10/26 by Migration.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 13th edition is up at Deep Sea News. The 14th edition will be hosted at the end of October by The Neurophilosopher's Blog.

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 October 13, 2006 | Comments (12)

October 12, 2006

It's A Flying Hootenanny!

The I and the Bird Hootenanny is up at Tortoise Trail.

Posted by Steve on October 12, 2006

Under the Skin of A Ferengi

Max, in commenting on the award of the Nobel Prize in Economics, praises Ned Phelps thusly:

People sometimes call me old school; Phelps is the old school of the old school. Unlike Prescott and Kydland, an ordinary mortal can engage Phelps' work. Unlike some Ferengi-like libertarians, there is a rich current of humanism in it. There are all sorts of provocative things to argue about.

Which made me wonder who would be a Ferengi-like libertarian. Unfortunately Max does not give any examples so let's briefly explore the idea.

Here's a few of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition:

1. Once you have their money, never give it back

14. Anything stolen is pure profit

29. When someone says "It's not the money," they're lying

34. War is good for business

51. Never admit a mistake if there's someone else to blame

61. Never buy what can be stolen

164. Never spend your own money when you can spend someone else's

172. If you can sell it, don't hesitate to steal it

Leading to the conclusion that Ferengi-like folks would be embezzlers, thieves, war profiteers, rent seekers and so on.

Here is libertarianism in short:

Libertarianism is a political philosophy advocating that individuals should be free to do whatever they wish with their person or property, as long as they do not infringe on the same liberty of others. Libertarians hold as a fundamental maxim that all human interaction should be voluntary and consensual. They maintain that the initiation (or threat) of physical force against another person or his property, or the commission of fraud, is a violation of that principle.

Ferengi-like libertarians is a contradiction in terms.

Peel the skin off any so-called Ferengi-like libertarian and you will not find a libertarian but some variant of a statist trying to get something for nothing; some congress critter or policy wonk who thinks they know better what to do with what you have earned and how you should live your life than you do.

On the other hand the terms Ferengi-like liberals, conservatives, democrats, republicans are not at all self contradictory. I'm not saying that everyone in these groups is Ferengi-like rather that being Ferengi-like would not disqualify someone from membership in one of these groups whereas being Ferengi-like does disqualify someone from being a libertarian or, for that matter, being a member of most schools of anarchism.


A quick look at the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition leads to the conclusion that Ferengi-like folks would be thieves, embezzlers, rent seekers and so on. Comparing this to the characteristics of libertarians it is easy to determine that the phrase Ferengi-like libertarians is a contradiction in terms.


Peel the skin off any so-called Ferengi-like libertarian and you will find not a libertarian but some variant of a statist trying to get something for nothing; some congress critter or policy wonk who thinks they know better what to do with what you have earned than you do.


The terms Ferengi-like liberals, conservatives, democrats, republicans are not at all self contradictory. This is not to say that everyone in these groups is Ferengi-like but rather that being Ferengi-like would not disqualify someone from membership in one of these groups whereas being Ferengi-like does disqualify someone from being a libertarian or, for that matter, being a member of most schools of anarchism.

Posted by Steve on October 12, 2006

October 10, 2006

Another Free Blogging Service

The Typepad folks, yes the same ones that also provide Movable Type and Live Journal are now offering a free service called Vox. There is also another entry page with a different presentation:

Vox is a free blogging service that lets you share stories, photos, and videos about your life — in privacy with friends and family, or openly with the world. It’s easy, fun, and works well with the other web things you do.
Create your own blog:

1 Choose from over 100 designs — from landscapes to pets to cycling.

2 Write about what interests you. Add mobile phone pics, images from your computer, books from Amazon, video from YouTube and iFilm, photos from Flickr and PhotoBucket, and more.

3 Post photos of your favorite things — they’re automatically collected for you.

4 See what your friends and family are up to.

5Control who can see your content — friends, family, or the world.

Hmmm, two thoughts. First, Blogger seems to have a pretty big lead in this space but some good competition should advance the state of the art. Second, how much will this service cannibalize six apart's for fee services?

Via Alex Tabarrak.

Posted by Steve on October 10, 2006 | Comments (2)

foley Not Enough For You?

Here's 151 years of congressional sex scandals.

Oh, the foley mess is not the first sex scandal involving pages.

Via beSpacific.

Posted by Steve on October 10, 2006

October 9, 2006

Where Is The Doctor's Lounge?

the retired doc suggests that the virtual lounge has become a surrogate for the near defunct physical lounge.

Posted by Steve on October 9, 2006

Ping'm

My first reaction to finding out about Google's new pinging service was, well, COOL.

Today we're launching the Google Blog Search Pinging Service, which is a way for individual bloggers and blog platform providers to inform us of content changes.
Yep, I was thinking that they would acknowledge the changes quickly and the content would show up in Google's search indexs as fast as stuff shows up on Technorati after you ping them. It looks like that may not be the case. From the Google Blog Search FAQ:
5. I pinged the Google Blog Search, but why don't I see the results in Google Blog Search?

While the Google Blog Search Pinging Service helps us stay informed about updates to your blog, it doesn't guarantee that your blog will be included in our Blog Search results. Since our inclusion process is automated, many factors, such as delays between when we receive the ping and when we then crawl your blog, can affect your blog's inclusion.

I'm going to give this a try and hopefully the results are a bit better than their apparently broken change log.

You can ping them manually or if your blogging platform supports it you do it automatically.

Via Bloggers Blog.

Posted by Steve on October 9, 2006

October 6, 2006

Friday Ark #107

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....?

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Invertebrates

Birds

Dogs

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (73 shouts as of 10/5)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Dispensing Happiness.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 132nd edition, 10/1 is up at Pets Garaden Blog. The 133rd edition will be hosted by Curiouser and Curiouser on 10/8. There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging hosted on 10/7 by The Hidden Paw 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 33rd edition is up and hosted by Don't Mess With Taxes. The 34th edition will be hosted on 10/12 by Tortoise Trail.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 13th edition is up at Deep Sea News. The 14th edition will be hosted at the end of October by The Neurophilosopher's Blog.

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 October 6, 2006 | Comments (10)

October 5, 2006

Clouds, Clouds, Clouds

Do we appreciate them enough?

The Cloud Appreciation Society thinks not and is working to correct this grave shortcoming. From the opening lines of their manifesto:

WE BELIEVE that clouds are unjustly maligned
and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them.
Whether you join them or not they have a huge collection of cloud pictures:

KHwavecloud20060712182748_surf02.jpg

(click image for larger view)

Via Make.

Posted by Steve on October 5, 2006

October 3, 2006

Realization of the Day

Well, yesterday:

It did not occur to me what might happen if an utterly mediocre man became convinced that he was not, in fact, a mediocrity.

Jim Henley.

Posted by Steve on October 3, 2006

Raising the Birthday Bar?

I suspect we all think pretty much the same way when we put together a birthday party for one of our kids. As Brittany's Mom says:

... "To each their own. It's about her. It's about me making this the best for her."
If that were all there was to this story there would be no more discussion. However,
she continues, "Brittany's my baby, my princess. If I could do it even bigger, I would. She's so good (Brittany brought home straight A's on her first report of the school year). If she was a snot, a little brat, I wouldn't do this."
What's the scale of this party? The closing present will give you an idea:
How do you top an appearance by Bubba Sparxxx? You pull out the big guns, this time in the form of a little luxury sports car. Brittany's surprise gift: a 2006 BMW Z4.

"The reason we are having all of this is because of the car," Leslie says. "She had her heart set on a BMW Z4 in this certain shade of blue. Grayson (car dealership) searched all over and found one in Oregon. I didn't want to have to wait a year to give it to her."
...
Brittany can't bring herself to get out of the car that retails for about $45,000.

15 year old Brittany said later:
"It would've been fine if I had a few friends to go the movies,"...
Yes, indeed.

Via this guy who was apparently most interested in the lap dance (see Grand Entrance segment of the video).

Posted by Steve on October 3, 2006

October 2, 2006

The american taliban Expands Its Reach

The us congress has passed legislation which prohibits US banking institutions from processing credit card and funds transfer transactions by once free residents of the United States with internet gambling companies.

dictator bush is expected to sign the legislation.

Much gambling is pretty much a waste of money if not outright theft and I don't participate in any kind of internet gambling and don't anticipate doing so. However, free people make their own choices.

Governments, if they have any role at all, protect free people from those who would physically harm them, defraud them, steal from them, etc. They do this by demonstrating in an open court that some person or business has performed one of these acts and they assure that proper restitution is made.

Does anyone else expect the stock of British and other international banks to rise a bit as folks move some of their money to foreign banks which the us governement can not control?

I think I'll open a British account and start using it for some of my infrequent debit/credit card transactions (I use cash for most of my in person purchasing). Does anyone have guidance on how to open an overseas account?

The way things are going financial diversification may become even more important.

Posted by Steve on October 2, 2006

Do Blondes Have More Fun?

Ok, she's blond so there is a chance that she does not learn lessons well. On the other hand she might be having a really good time:

I had my purse stolen last Tuesday, Wednesday, twice on Thursday, again on Saturday, and also yesterday and most likely tomorrow.

You decide.

Posted by Steve on October 2, 2006

Who Could Stomach Making the Mark?

mark foley's name will apparently stay on the Florida ballot even though he has resigned and is no longer contending for office:

Under Florida law his name stays on the ballot, but the party can designate another candidate. You have to put your mark on his name, but the votes go to the designated Republican.
This has to be a case where there will be zero votes for the republican.

Who could possibly stomach putting their mark next to this person's name even if it is a surrogate for some other designated candidate.

Posted by Steve on October 2, 2006 | Comments (1)

October 1, 2006

Skritching Carnival Time

The 132nd edition of the Carnival of the Cats is up at Tigger's place, Pet's Garden blog.

Posted by Steve on October 1, 2006

Inside or Outside

If you think the system that brought you bill clinton, george bush, jack abramoff, mark foley or, well, you pick your least favorite politician, is broken you might try changing the system from the inside:

changethesystem117-thumb.jpg

Or, you might consider that it is time to replace the system.

Cartoon from The Gaping Void.

Posted by Steve on October 1, 2006

Why Was He Still in the Game?

Headline: High school back rushes for 658 yards

A short blurb about this story showed up in many Sunday morning sports sections today. Most reports were brief clones of what appears to be a wire service story. For example, here is part of one report:

Paul McCoy ran for 658 yards in a West Virginia high school football game but might not have set a national record.

His yardage tops the National Federation of State High School Association's listed record of 619 yards set by Ronney Jenkins of Oxnard, Calif., in 1995.

But high school records historian Doug Huff said Saturday the recognized record is 739 yards by John Giannantonio of Netcong, N.J., in 1950, against Mountain Lakes.

``The National Federation book for some reason does not include that (the 739 yards), and I think the reason is there's a formal process for submitting those things,'' Huff said Saturday. ``This school doesn't exist anymore. The papers recognized it. The school had a special ceremony. It's been in my records for years.''

McCoy piled up his yardage on just 29 carries -- an average of 22.7 yards per attempt -- and scored 10 touchdowns as Matewan beat Burch 64-0 on Friday. McCoy racked up 477 of his yards scoring on touchdown runs that covered 69, 1, 52, 56, 52, 20, 31, 84, 87 and 25 yards.

He also had a 77-yard touchdown run called back because of a penalty.

One paper condensed the wire article and the person who wrote the condensation noted that they were impressed by this performance.

What is there to be impressed about? Burch is clearly a very weak team. And, after the 4th or 5th score why was this player even still in the game as a back? Or at all? Surely, Matewan has a second team? Other players who need experience?

Nah, not impressed at all.

Posted by Steve on October 1, 2006 | Comments (1)