May 30, 2004
How Fitting
The domain name Washingtonienne.com, once home to the blog by the young woman who was a Senator's staff aide by day and a prostitute by night, has now been taken over by MoveOn.org.
May 28, 2004
Signs
From the blogger of The Art of Politics comes a new Bush/Cheney campaign sign. There are a few other choices there...this is one that I think is a real possiblity, especially after Gore's recent speech.
Know Your Audience
Al Gore spoke to MoveOn.org members on Wednesday.
He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.
I disagree, but I suppose that depends on what your definition of "is" is.
And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.
He knows, or should know, that this policy didn't begin with this administration. Such photos were first banned during WWI and WWII. While the ban was later lifted, it was in effect again during the Clinton administration.
How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.
As if we enjoyed full support until those pictures came out. Articles I've read after 9/11 but before we went to Iraq makes me think that the only reason some papers showed signs of fellowship with America on 9/12 was because it was PC to do so. I've wondered how many would have rather written "America Gets What it Deserves".
"...what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.
Some people wouldn't recognize a threat if the WTC and the American embassy in Africa were bombed and U.S.S. Cole was attacked. Saying "We will find out who was responsible and hold them accountable." isn't enough...you actually have to mean it.
"Our founders were insightful students of human nature. They feared the abuse of power because they understood that every human being has not only "better angels" in his nature, but also an innate vulnerability to temptation especially the temptation to abuse power over others."
The "better angels of our nature" is from a speech by Lincoln. Can you really consider the 16th president a founder? It's a minor point, I know, but he should have known better and it's one of many things he said that were inaccurate or misleading.
As for "the temptation to abuse power over others'...considering the temptations that the president under whom Gore served gave into...I wouldn't have mentioned this if I were Gore.
"The President convinced a majority of the country that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11th."
Um, no. We knew who was responsible for 9/11, because of that we invaded Afghanistan. There's more to fighting terrorism than just attacking those who have already attacked us. We also need to identify who would potentially be a future threat. That is why we wanted Hussein removed from power.
He has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every U.S. town and city to a greater danger of attack by terrorists because of his arrogance, willfulness, and bungling at stirring up hornet's nests that pose no threat whatsoever to us.
Somehow I missed the news reports of Americans killed at home by terrorists lately. While I don't deny that another attack is possible, I think Bush has done a good job at keeping me safe. With summer coming, it's the real hornets that are a bigger threat right now.
And by then insulting the religion and culture and tradition of people in other countries.
I missed this news too. Guess I was distracted by Kerry insulting everyone who isn't French or a terrorist.
How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison.
Where were the questions about dishonor during the last administration?
Luckily, there was a high level of competence on the part of our soldiers even though they were denied the tools and the numbers they needed for their mission. What a disgrace that their families have to hold bake sales to buy discarded Kevlar vests to stuff into the floorboards of the Humvees! Bake sales for body armor.
Did this remind anyone else of the old slogan, "It will be a great day when schools have all the money they need and the airforce has to hold a bakesale to buy a bomber"?
"Kerry should not tie his own hands by offering overly specific, detailed proposals concerning a situation that is rapidly changing and unfortunately, rapidly deteriorating, but should rather preserve his, and our country's, options, to retrieve our national honor as soon as this long national nightmare is over."
(In other news, Democratic challenger John Kerry says that if elected president, his top priority would be preventing terrorists from "gaining weapons of mass murder". I guess that's not overly specific. Not very original either.)
Eisenhower did not propose a five-point plan for changing America's approach to the Korean War when he was running for president in 1952.
No, he just promised to go to Korea. I don't know if that would have mattered anyway. In 1952, the fact that the Democratic candidate was divorced could have been enough to keep him from being elected.
This new political viciousness by the President and his supporters is found not only on the campaign trail, but in the daily operations of our democracy.
Vicious? Let's compare remarks by Gore, Pelosi, and Kerry to those made by Bush and high level administration officials. What do you mean there's nothing to compare? All the nasty personal attacks have come from Democrats.
The rest of the speech is more of the same. It can be condensed into:
How dare they?
Bush is the devil and he stole the election from me.
Bush should apologize more...for everything and anything. (Note: Eisenhower did not apologize for the U2 incident. Maybe Bush should apologize for that too.)
We're good, they're Republicans. wrong about everything. evil murdering zombies. Hitler. bad. This is the one absolute univeral truth. Well, that and the fact that global warming will destroy us all.
At least you can say the man knows his audience.
Read more about Gore's speech and what it should have been like.
And So It Begins...
Today should have been my last day of peaceful, quiet solitude without kids hogging the game consoles, bickering with each other, and thinking that my job is entertainment director when they get bored before the kids have a three-day weekend from school.
No such luck. My husband woke us up to tell us that Oldham County had closed the schools because of downed power lines. (We had severe storms go through here last night.) I let the kids stay up late last night, until we were clear from tornado warnings, so I wasn't looking forward to prying them out of bed this morning...but it would have been worth it for one schoolday's time of sweet silence to make sure that they don't miss a valuable day of education.
May 26, 2004
Wictory Wednesday
Bush-Cheney '04 has made history by becoming the first campaign to have the support of more than one million contributors. Yesterday, the campaign had support from 1,006,565 contributors representing every county in every state across the country.
(Emphasis mine.)
You can be a part of this grassroots support.
If you're a blogger, you can join Wictory Wednesdays simply by putting up a post like this one every Wednesday, asking your readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign.
See what others have to say, check out the links to all the Wictory Wednesday blogs in the extended entry.
May 25, 2004
Don't Let a Sweet Face Fool You
I live with a Bad Cat. Actually there are three Bad Cats, but this one is deceptive. Two cats make a show of their badness. Zoe, on the other hand, looks like a sweet, and maybe a bit simple-minded, kitty.
Ha! That vacant look she has is because her mind is elsewhere...planning her next excursion into Badness.
She has raided my purse so that she can steal a makeup brush. I have made sure my purse was fully zipped up and in my bedroom behind a closed door. She's opened the door, unzipped my purse and taken her "prize". Not once, not twice, but three times.
After that, when I went to retrieve my makeup brush the last time it was damp with cat spit. I decided that was totally disgusting her determination was impressive and I gave her the brush.
Comment Spam
Someone from IP address 210.204.103.1 posted comment spam. I looked up the location of the IP and my only conclusion is that the men in Tamuning, Guam must be pitifully unendowed.
May 23, 2004
Blogs Wanted
One of the projects at JoeAnt that I plan to begin soon is to further develop the Weblogs section of the directory. I plan on adding more topics, subdividing some of the larger topics into subtopics, and adding new blog listings.
I need help.
If you want your blog listed (or you want to suggest someone else's blog, blog hosts, directories, awards, or tools), please put a description of the blog/site in the comments section for this post or email me at Antie_emATjoeant.com (change "AT" to @). Include the Weblog topic that you think best suits the blog. Descriptions should be objective and give our visitors an idea of what they'll find when they visit the blog. I'll also welcome suggestions for new subtopics.
Please do not submit any blogs with objectionable content.
Make an Avatar
Portrait Illustrator Maker
Ok, so my portrait looks nothing like me but it's the best I'm going to be able to do at 4:40 in the morning.
U of L and the Klan
A University of Louisville professor wants to ban the KKK from the school's campus. The reason he wants to use to ban them is that they're a terrorist organization.
The article quotes one student as saying, "If we wanted to learn to hate, we could just learn from the streets and not come to school for it." I would counter that while the students can hear hate-speech on the streets, the university can help students learn to deal with it in an appropriate manner. An education is more than learning facts, it's also learning critical thinking, to react to negative situations intellectually instead of emotionally.
Of course, it's easy for me to take that position. I graduated long, long a few years ago and won't have to listen to the whacko SOBs if they show up on campus.
May 21, 2004
Another List
`Doonesbury' Creator Plans Memorial Day
Garry Trudeau's comic strip next Monday will have a list of military personnel who have been killed in Iraq.
Memorial Day is the right time to think about the men and women who have lost their lives in wars. I'm not sure that a comic strip is the best venue for this list though. Since the writing will need to be very small to fit in all the names (I guess that's the point), they won't be easy to read so I don't view this as much of a memorial.
It's too bad that there isn't a list of all the people in Iraq who are alive today because Saddam is no longer in power. Listing them on June 30 would be a good way to celebrate the handover of control.
RFID Implants
I hate standing in line as much as the next person but I don't think I would go this far...
Clubbers in Spain are choosing to receive a microchip implant instead of carrying a membership card. It is the latest and perhaps the most unlikely of uses for implantable radio frequency ID chips.The Baja Beach Club in Barcelona offers people signing up for VIP membership a choice between an RFID chip and a normal card. VIP members can jump the entrance queues, reserve a table and use the nightclub's VIP lounge.
My aversion to the idea has more to do with not wanting something implanted under my skin than it has to do with privacy. (The only information the chip transmits is a unique ID number.)
May 20, 2004
Where I Went This Morning
A few blogs and some other interesting and useful sites:
pc4media - read about the NASWIT and make sure you read the post about why you should never post your picture online.
Micro Persuasion - first NASWIT blog (see above.)
Virtual Private Library - the main blog lists other blogs that offer links to a wide variety of resources. Some of these include: Astronomy, Directories (JoeAnt is listed!), Finding People, Internet Demographics, References, Statistics, and Theology.
Can't Find on Google - visitors submit search terms they used and a description of what they were looking for but couldn't find through Google.
Free After Rebate - find products that offer rebates equal to their purchase price. Use rebated money to send me chocolate.
Read Print - texts of books and other works that are in the public domain. There are other sites that offer this but I like the clean look of this one.
Waypath - find weblog posts linking to blogs or sites, find related posts, search posts for keywords, and chart the buzz for terms.
The Tile Machine - make background tiles or browse the gallery.
Invade Canada - if for no other reason than it is pronounced "zee" not "zed".
Gas Buddy - high and low gas prices for U.S. states and Canadian provinces (and some cities). Each listing shows the date and time of the post along with the station's name, address, and gas price.
Wictory Wednesday
I know, I'm a day late...again.
Looking presidential doesn't make someone a good candidate for the job. It matters if you're casting a TV show or movie, but when you want to elect a leader of the country it's what the person does and says that counts more than how he looks or sounds.
If you're a blogger, you can join Wictory Wednesdays simply by putting up a post like this one every Wednesday, asking your readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign.
See what others have to say, check out the links to all the Wictory Wednesday blogs in the extended entry.
Ballet Recital
I took these pictures while they were waiting for their turn on stage last Saturday. Somehow my name got put on the list of room moms. I didn't mind, the alternative was sitting in the audience with my husband and sons. The choice between sitting with an 11-year-old and a 15-year-old boy during a dance recital made staying backstage sound like a good option.
Each class had two room moms who stayed backstage with them before and after their dance. (We did get to sit with the audience during the dance.) I brought a blanket for them to sit on so they would keep their costume and tights clean...they must have been migratory butterflies because it didn't take long before they were off the blanket and on the floor.
I brought coloring books (the dollar store had nice big ones for $1 each) and crayons. This kept them busy for some of the time. The rest of the time I kept threatening to get big butterfly nets to keep them all together instead of running around the gym. They wanted to climb on things in the gym. As a fun-spoiling responsible adult, I told them not to do any climbing...at least not until after they went on stage. They had to wait until after the dance to risk a twisted ankle or broken leg.
After trying to keep the girls together and somewhat under control, I decided that maybe sitting in the audience with my sons wouldn't have been that bad after all. (The boys actually enjoyed it...not that they would admit that publicly.)
My daughter's ballet class. Not a shy bunch, they love posing for a camera.
Emma and a couple of friends from her class, with wings.
May 19, 2004
School Rules
School bans sack lunches, baked goods
Sack lunches have been banned from the school for the remainder of the school year with one exception: parents will be allowed to take a sack lunch to their child.
And I thought some of the rules at my kids' school were stupid.
Grab Your May Pole
While they have some catchy slogans, I can't see how this really helps.
Remind me not to shake hands with anyone from the anti-war crowd.
Maybe There's a Good Reason...
I was reading an article about censorship of the press.
Censorship has many faces, several of which include the under-covering, ignoring, and misrepresenting of information; essentially any interference with the free flow of information in society. Censorship does not necessarily need to come from some nefarious governmental department, it can take place around the editorial decision-making tables of many of our mainstream media sources.
If you read many blogs, you'll have seen this discussed before. One of the things I like about blogs is that I can find news that isn't being covered, or at least not in any depth, by major media sources.
So I did a search for "Top 25 Censored Stories". Project Censorship is there at the number one spot. The top five are:
#1: The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance
#2: Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty
#3: US Illegally Removes Pages from Iraq U.N. Report
#4: Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists
#5: The Effort to Make Unions Disappear
Funny thing, none of the 25 match any of the news stories I had in mind when I began the search. A look at the About Us page gives me a clue why..."Current or previous national judges include: Noam Chomsky, Susan Faludi, George Gerbner, Sut Jhally, Frances Moore Lappe, Norman Solomon, Michael Parenti, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara Seaman, Erna Smith, Mike Wallace and Howard Zinn."
Check out their page of favorite Web sites. Their choice of favorites aside, is it just me or is it odd that while they list the URLs for the sites they aren't clickable?
May 18, 2004
Making Snow Flakes
The temperature is going up again this week (it had cooled off a bit over the weekend.) I'm not complaining, I would rather have it hot than cold but the unusually high temperatures make the kids think it should be summer already. This doesn't make the last few weeks of school any easier for them or for me.
When it's hot, this is what I'll be doing. That and sitting in front of an air conditioner vent.
Check out the gallery of snow flakes too. There are some really amazing ones.
May 13, 2004
The Infinite Cat Project
No, this is not the same idea your tom cat has for an infinite number of cats when he's yowling to get out at night. It is a series of pictures of cats looking at all the other cats on a computer monitor.
According to Mike Stanfill, this is how it began:
It all began innocently enough when a user on a Mac help forum posted a picture of his cat, Frankie, contemplating the beauty of a flower. Shortly afterwards another user posted a picture of his cat, Sammy, bristling at the picture of the cat on the monitor. I decided this was too much fun and advanced the concept as The Infinite Cat Project.
The most recent picture shows Fred watching Foma & Frosya, watching Dora, watching Percy, watching Dante, watching Kazoo, watching Starbuck, watching Jack, watching Cinnamon, watching Wrigley, watching Annie, watching Molly, watching Torin, watching Chloe, watching Bebe, watching Luna, watching Frida, watching Sammy, watching Spot, watching Brad Kitt & Cat Stevens, watching Fumphy, watching Ugly, watching Clyde, watching Cat1, watching Pixel, watching KC, watching Wookie, watching Jackie, watching Tiger, watching Farrusko, watching Skinny White Boy, watching Peaker, watching Brit, watching Plien, watching Eunheui, watching Datsa, watching Tasha, watching Duma, watching "99", watching Snowball, watching Hawkeye, watching Copper, watching Fritz, watching Zoot, watching Abby, watching Frankie, watching Poozy, watching Frankie, watching Sammy, watching Frankie.
This sounds interesting...if I can clear off enough room on my desk for all three cats to sit on it.
Painting Online
A Paint-like program lets visitors create pictures and save them to share with others. Some of the shared pictures show real talent and some are just scribblings. (I didn't save any of my attempts, they would definitely come under the "scribblings" category.) Caution: some of the images or language in them may be considered offensive. You can use the draw section without viewing the archived images.
Update: Here's another site if you like to color but don't have the imagination or talent to come up with your own designs. SegPlay lets you paint-by-numbers. You can select pictures by category, popularity, theme (there's one for chocolate!), and degree of difficulty.
The paint-by-number page opens in a smaller window. You can enlarge the image but you will have to scroll to see all of it. Once you have filled in all of the areas for a given color, that color disappears from your palette.
Google Blogs
Google has joined the blogging community with the launch of a blog of its own. There are only three posts so far. The first promises:
We're going to post stuff here - regular bloggy things: What Larry had for breakfast. What Sergey thinks of that Hellboy movie. Which Dawson's Creek character reminds us most of Eric.And perhaps, news about Google, and our thoughts on whatever random events cross our horizon.
So far, so good. The problems come with the second post. Only the first was signed. (According to Evan Williams, some posts will be signed while ones that are just corporate announcements will not.) The second post was edited. There was no comment about the edit nor any sign that the post wasn't the same as originally written.
The third post links to information about how Google works. They are responding to a problem that I posted about a month ago.
Two more things:
1. It doesn't allow readers to post comments but does invite comments by email.
2. The PR bar for the blog is gray now. Any bets on how quickly that changes?
Wictory Wednesday
I was thinking about the President; how his opponents mocked him for being uncultured, how there was talk of disloyalty because of his personal relationships with people aligned with the other side during the war, and how his fitness to serve as a wartime president was questioned because of his minimal military experience (especially compared to the Democratic candidate during his re-election campaign).
He was called a country bumpkin, several of his in-laws fought on the side of the Confederacy, and his opponent during his re-election campaign had military war experience. All of this and yet Lincoln was still re-elected.
The comparison I'm trying to make isn't between Bush and Lincoln, what I want to do is point out that the criticisms put forth by the opponents of both men were and are just distractions to keep people from paying attention to what's really important.
What really matters is recognizing a true leader.
Volunteer or donate to the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign.
May 11, 2004
Driving Me Crazy
I have come to the conclusion that cats can drive.
I was out picking up some craft supplies for our Brownie meeting today and someone rushed to pull out in front of me and then just poked along. This is exactly how my cats behave when I'm trying to walk through my house.
What? Were you going somewhere?
Personality Tests
Word association test:
| I have issues with... |
| walls society fast accident |
I picked the random list of 25 words. The slower your response for selecting negative, neutral, or positive, the higher that word rates on your "issues" list. My biggest issue was that there were a couple of times I had to click the button twice since it didn't react after the first time. Maybe my main issue is coordination, or lack thereof.
I also asked the Oracle what I should be doing now. It wasn't taking quizzes.
Science Links
Chaos seems to aid learning - given the lack of order in our house, my children should all be geniuses.
Material grabs more sun - improved solar cells are more efficient.
My younger son did a science fair project using solar cells. At that time I thought it would be cool to build something useful with them (when we were doing research we found a description of a solar-powered fan that one could take to the beach). The problem with actually building something is that it would take many cells to power anything that approached usefulness. The cells are fragile and not that cheap, so for now, landfills be damned, I'm using battery power.
Hunkin's Experiments - fun experiments and tricks, including one that will make your tongue tingle.
Engine of Our Ingenuity - this program isn't on my local Public Radio station but I wish it were. At least I can read the transcripts and listen online.
It's Not What You Want Anymore
In Ohio, Supreme Court Considers Right to Procreate
Sean Talty fathered seven children with five women and fell $40,000 behind on support payments, once going two years without making a payment.When he appeared in Common Pleas Court on felony charges for not paying child support, Talty found himself before one fed-up jurist: Judge James L. Kimbler ordered the 32-year-old Akron resident to take "reasonable efforts" not to get anyone pregnant for five years -- or go to jail.
Now the Ohio Supreme Court is having its time wasted listening to this jerk's whining hearing arguments on this case. According to his lawyer, J. Dean Carro, "There's no limit in the constitution on the number of children you can have. If he were a man of means, he would have paid it up. He doesn't have any money. He's supporting the kids to the best of his ability."
Bioethicists say the legal system shouldn't interfer in a person's reproductive rights. We're not talking about a stable, married couple who has had trouble making ends meet but a man who has fathered seven children with five different women. I don't see how telling this man to keep his pants zipped is leading us down a slippery slope where the government could end up requiring a woman to abort a "child would be born with spina bifida or cystic fibrosis." Instead of thinking of the ethics of telling him to have some self-control or at least use birth control, consider whether it is ethical for his children to not get the full support that is due them.
He has married two women, he has two children with the most recent wife and she says she wants more. If you want a housefull of kids, you need to make a better choice in who the father will be. Don't pick someone who already is obligated to support five children along with your two.
He wants, she wants, the lawyers want...they're all missing the point. Once you have a child what you want comes second to what the child needs.
May 10, 2004
A Bout of Beal
My daughter stayed home from school today. This morning she was complaining of a sore throat and an upset stomach.
She seemed to be well on her way to full recovery before the morning was over. (I would have taken her to school but I wasn't feeling that well myself.) I think what she really had was beal.
If I put that on the note explaining her absence (Emma was unable to attend school yesterday due to a bout of beal), do you think they will call me to explain what it is? Or will they just think that I can't spell bile?
I'm a Little Tart
I was browsing through the GEOURL sites near me and found a blog with this quiz.
find your inner PIE @ stvlive.com
Mmmmmmmm, pie.
Butterflies and Balloons
PETA Protests Butterfly Release
The first annual Flight of the Butterfly Festival was held last week at the Lake Elsinore Outlets. They had planned on releasing several hundred butterflies at the end of the festival.
Upon their dramatic release, many of the butterflies will mingle through the crowds as they are drawn to the spring florals specifically selected for their capabilities to attract butterflies, in hopes that they continue to make their home at the Outlet Center....The first 100 children to arrive at 12:00 p.m. will receive butterfly nets and a unique* opportunity to try and catch a butterfly after the release.
The release was cancelled after they received a letter from PETA. "PETA says such releases are used mostly for wedding celebrations and memorials. But a spokeswoman says butterflies have to struggle to get out of envelopes and boxes." The news article doesn't mention whether or not PETA objected to the little darlin's with nets.
Instead of releasing butterflies, the festival organizers decided to "float butterfly-shaped balloons." Let's see, using balloons which are a potential environmental pollutant and could be a health hazard to animals or children instead of releasing butterflies because the butterflies might have to struggle to get out. I fail to see the logic in this decision.
*At one time I would have mocked them for calling the ordinary childhood activity of catching butterflies "unique". With organizations such as PETA, it won't just be unique, it will be unheard of.
New Media vs. Traditional Media
From a Boston Globe article about bloggers applying for media credentials for the Democratic National Convention:
Still, any mix, however small, of bloggers and the old-school press could lead to some choice interactions, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. "It cuts right to the core of the age-old question about journalists: Are they professionals, or can any old jerk do it? I guess we're going to find out."
Not that he's biased or anything. Just who does the Pew Research Center think these "jerks" are? According to one study about content creators (people with Web sites, Web cams, Weblogs, file sharers, and visitors to newsgroups):
Content creators are likely to have higher levels of education – 46% have a college degree or more compared to 26% of all Americans. Income levels are also generally higher among content creators, with 31% living in households earning more that $75,000 annually, compared to 18% of all Americans who live in such households.
I'm not saying that all or even most blogs should be considered news organizations but I also don't think they should dismiss bloggers as not being equivilant to traditional journalists either.
Yet, as news outlets, blogs often fall into the shadowy space between reporting and advocacy. Outside of their links to stories from the conventional press, blogs tend to have little independent reporting, and more stream-of-consciousness commentary and analysis. They are often fiercely partisan, and post links to parties' and candidates' fund-raising operations.
At least the bias of the blog author is more likely to be stated on the site unlike those "non-partisan" newspapers and TV newscasts. Limiting media credentials for bloggers because they "have little independent reporting" seems like an attempt to make sure that few blogs develop fresh news reports. It's like when you were trying to get your first job. No one wanted to hire you unless you had job experience and you couldn't get experience unless someone would hire you.
Some independent voices might be a nice change. What's the worst that could happen? Bloggers could force the traditional news sources to work harder and do a better job. Maybe that's what they're afraid of.
Blogger
There have been some changes made at Blogger and it's more than just a redesigned logo. The first thing users will notice is a new dashboard. Along with access to your blogs, it has "some blogs of note, a link to your Profile page, and recently updated blogs."
There are new templates, users can enable comments, there's a new profile feature which allows the author to show some biographical info with a picture (images still need to be hosted elsewhere). The profile page "also feature blogging stats, interests, and links to each user's blogs as well as recent posts; and they allow you too find other Blogger users who share your interests or location. Additionally, there are Profile Tags that will render a mini-version of your profile on your Main Page."
Posts can be archived individually. (This assumes that they've solved the problems with permalinking that Blogger has had in the past.) Posts can now be made by email.
For new users, Blogger has added a basic tutorial beginning with "What's a Blog?"
May 08, 2004
Abu-Gharib
A group of people committed inhumane acts. Some people would like everyone to believe that this is how all the American military, or even all Americans behave. Isn't it ironic that these tend to be the same people who tell us that we shouldn't judge all Muslims or all Middle-Easterners by the acts of Islamic terrorists?
Anyone who takes the time to consider it will see that it is illogical to believe that the evil acts by one man (or group) should bring guilt to all others who share his race, religion, or country of origin. When anyone lets his prejudices define his thinking, he turns away from truth and reason.
May 07, 2004
Text Analysis
Textalyser will show the total word count, number of different words, complexity, readability, number of characters, average sentence length, frequency for words used, and other statistics.
Copy and paste text or submit a URL for a Web site analysis.
Don't Forget the Garlic Butter
Giant African snails seized from schools
The snails which are as large as a person's hand were seized from schools in Wisconsin.
In 1966, a Miami boy smuggled three Giant African Land Snails into the country. His grandmother eventually released them into a garden, and in seven years there were more than 18,000 of them. The eradication program took 10 years, according to the USDA....The snails, native to Africa but also found in parts of Asia, are known to consume as many as 500 different plants and their mucous can transmit meningitis.
The main concern is that the snails could be transported to states with warmer climates where they could do serious damage to crops and other vegetation.
Too bad they can't train the snails to only eat kudzu.
May 05, 2004
Catholicism à la Carte
I was reading a post on Miller's Time called Wanting It Both Ways about Catholic politicians who support abortion but still want to receive Communion.
Are they confusing the Catholic church with a fast food drive-through? "Have it your way". pick the sacraments you want, the way you want them. All the good feelings of being blessed and having received Communion with none of the bothersome stuff about repenting sins and trying not to repeat them.
Being a politician does not mean you are above the Church. A politician should follow what he or she believes. If that belief is different from the religion they have been practicing (or making a show of practicing) then they should seek a religion that more closely matches their beliefs, not insist that the Church make accommodations for them.
Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat who was raised in a devout Italian Catholic home, told reporters, "I believe that my position on choice is one that is consistent with my Catholic upbringing, which said that every person has a free will and has the responsibility to live their lives in a way that they would have to account for in the end."
So she exercises her free will to support abortion. Her church believes that abortion is a sin worthy of excommunication. I wonder if she thinks she will have anything "to account for in the end". What if Jesus had done what was politically expedient or popular? We probably wouldn't be having this debate now....
Can I pick and choose which laws I want to obey? I mean, if they can profess a faith and still want to pick what beliefs of that faith they want applied to them, can I decide what laws of the government will apply to me?
Wictory Wednesday: Cinco de Mayo
Liderazgo firme en tiempos de cambio
Lo insto a ejercer su derecho como ciudadano de registrarse para votar y apoyar a nuestro Presidente. Puede hacerlo ahora mismo visitando Regístrese para votar. Las elecciones presidenciales de 2004 pudieran ser muy reñidas, tanto como las del 2000, y su voto es muy importante. Con el reto que enfrentamos de mantener próspera y segura a nuestro nación, hay demasiado en juego en las próximas elecciones. Haga sentir su voz registrándose para votar visitando Regístrese para votar..
Contribuciones
Registro de Voluntario(a)s
May 04, 2004
Waffles
For those of us without staff to cater to our wants and needs, a quick and easy recipe for waffles.
2 cups biscuit mix
1/2 cup oil
2 large eggs
1 cup club soda
In a large bowl, stir together biscuit mix, oil, and eggs. Add club soda, stirring until batter is blended.
Cook in a preheated waffle iron according to manufacturer's instructions.
Why does the link for "waffles" go to John Kerry's site? See this post for more information.
Rock & Roll Hall of Shame
Is there anyone who hasn't, at least briefly, wanted to be a rock star? For most of us (especially those of us who can't sing or play an instrument) the fantasy is fleeting...lasting about as long as it takes to put on a "performance" while singing along to a song on the stereo in the privacy of our bedrooms.
Some, my husband for example, were in bands when they were younger. I'm not really sure why he quit playing. It could have been creative differences or it could have been the desire to have a steady income. The whole starving artist thing is much more appealing when you aren't the one going hungry.
This site shows what happens when people achieve enough celebrity in other areas that they are able to convince someone to let them record a rock song.
Some of these people even made their living from singing. I thought that the oddest thing I would ever hear Bing Crosby sing was "Little Drummer Boy" with David Bowie. (Actually that duet has a strange fascination for me.) His rendition of "Hey Jude", while not technically bad, is, well, it's not good.
You can hear a clip of Joel Grey singing "White Room". If you are either a fan of his or of the song, I would recommend not listening.
Several decided to totally destroy perform some Beatles songs. They include Joe Pesci singing "Got to Get You Into My Life", Mae West singing "Day Tripper", and George Burns singing "With a Little Help From My Friends".
There are two Beatles wives there too. Yoko sings something called "John John". I didn't listen to it. I have to believe that was a good decision. I did listen to Linda McCartney. The recording is from her mic feed while the Beatles were singing "Hey Jude". The woman was bad. Awful. Flatter than plate glass. And there's over 5 minutes of it.
It did make me think a little better of the Bing Crosby version. Also, by comparison, she makes even my singing sound good.
Other outtakes include Marlon Brando calling Burt Reynolds narcissistic (!) and an interview with Tom Brokaw. Warning, do not listen to Tommy Lasorda, Earl Weaver, Casey Kasem or the one with Martin and Lewis if there are children around or you object to profanity.
May 03, 2004
Bob and Mike Show
Bob Woodward: “The President still believes, with some conviction, that this [the Iraq war] was absolutely the right thing, that he has the duty to free people, to liberate people, and this was his moment.” Mike Wallace: “Who gave George Bush the duty to free people around the world?” Woodward: “That’s a really good question. The Constitution doesn’t say that’s part of the Commander-in-Chief’s duties.” Wallace: “The President of the United States, without a great deal of background in foreign policy, makes up his mind and believes he was sent by somebody to free the people — not just in Iraq, but around the world?” Woodward: “That’s his stated purpose. It is far-reaching, and ambitious, and I think will cause many people to tremble.”
It's not as if he were the first President to think so.
And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."
A few other countries thought so too.
Albania
Angola
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Colombia
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Georgia
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Japan
Kuwait
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Mongolia
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Palau
Panama
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Rwanda
Singapore
Slovakia
Solomon Islands
South Korea
Spain
Tonga
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Kingdom
Uzbekistan