Monthly Archives: May 2006

Friday Ark #85

This entry was posted in Bird Blogging Cat Blogging Dog Blogging Entymology Friday Ark Invertebrate Blogging Pet Blogging Weekend Cat Blogging Weekend Dog Blogging on by

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….

United 93: The Movie

This entry was posted in Movies on by

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.

Ouch….Huh?

This entry was posted in bush administration on by

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!