Detected in 7 States: “The virus has killed racing greyhounds in seven states and has been found in shelters and pet shops in many places, including the New York suburbs.” (New York Times )
Daily Archives: 22 Sep 05
Should Mike Steal the Ticket?
Do the Right Thing: “In a world of religious wars, genocide, and terrorism, no one is naive enough to think that all moral beliefs are universal. But beneath such diversity, can we discern a common core—a distinct, universal, maybe even innate “moral sense” in our human nature?” (Boston Review)
Beyond Cyberpunk!
Gareth Branwyn et al have finally ported the classic 1991 Hypercard stack to the web.
Keep a Human on the Employment Rolls
“The Find-a-Human database is a collection of touch-tone recipes that get you through big companies’ voice-jail systems and through to a live operator.” [via boing boing]
AI Naming Advice
“Find the perfect name for your business or product: Think all the quality domains are taken? Far from it – creativity produces quality results.
Let us know what you’re looking for in a name. Complete as much as you like of the form below, in any combination – no choice excludes another.
We’ll find the best available domains – all dot coms with no hyphens or numbers. We are experts at finding short, brandable names, business names, dictionary words, descriptive names, misspellings and more. We do NOT just combine keywords – as you can see from our For Sale domains and those RECENTLY FOUND.”
NPR’s "Extremists"
In a story on NPR’s Morning Edition on 9/15, reporter Cory Flintoff noted that “some extremist groups say (the July 7 London subway bombings) were a response to the U.S. and British military presence in Iraq.” NPR has repeatedly featured Tony Blair’s characterization of such reasoning as “obscene.” Now, FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting is asking you to complain to NPR about the patently absurd suggestion that you would have to be an extremist to believe there was a link between the bombings and British participation in the Iraqi invasion. In fact, a majority of the public in the U.S. and the U.K. see the link, as well as a number of respected foreign affairs analysts. The extremist position, in reality, is that of Blair and Flintoff…
Alien Abduction? Return to tell the story!
“In case of alien abduction these dog tags may save your life. The crucial data an alien will need to get you back to Earth is die stamped into these dog tags.” [via robot wisdom]
Autumn Moon Encore
Hundreds of photographers converge on Yosemite’s Glacier Point fifty-seven years to the day later, as the conditions of Ansel Adams’ famous “Autumn Moon” photograph recur. (Sky and Telescope)
Normalizing the Abnormal
“What’s been so surprising about the U.S. news media’s coverage of George W. Bush’s Katrina debacle is that leading journalists finally have broken with a five-year pattern of protecting both Bush and his presidency.” — Robert Parry (consortium news)
New Vatican Rule Said to Bar Gays as New Priests
This is how the Nazi Pope thinks the Church can rebound from the clergy abuse scandal (New York Times ). In reality, of course, this will simply drive gay clergy deeper into the closet (if they were ever out), which will increase the prevalence of exploitative illicit solutions to sexual repression. At least, so far, there will not be a witchhunt for gays already wearing the cloth. While the Church insists this does not represent a change in doctrinal position, it is clearly a move from policing behaviors to thoughts and feelings. In explaining why those entering the priesthood will be targeted, a spokesman explains it is because of the unique temptation posed by the seminaries, even for those who are celibate, because one is surrounded exclusively by men. (So here’s an idea; solve the problem by admitting women to the priesthood…)
Murder, They Wrote
“On Monday, the Washington Post’s Metro section reported on two murders that had occurred the previous Saturday night in the District. The victims were about the same age—34 and 32. They were killed at around the same time—10:45 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. They were both shot to death.
The differences: One was white; the other was black. One was killed in a long-since-gentrified neighborhood in Northwest, the other in a long-depressed section of Southeast.
Guess which crime got more ink in the Post.
…At the Post, there’s a longstanding news formula for deciding why one murder story merits 18 times the coverage of another…” (Washington City Paper)
…and it is not as simple as the race of the victim. [read on]
It is Hard Not to Gloat…
…when even The American Spectator has That Sinking Feeling:
“…(A)t this stage of the game, barring some imaginative political moves that bear some resemblance to the Bush Administration circa 2002, Republicans on Capitol Hill and even some longtime Bush team members in various Cabinet level departments say this Administration is done for.
‘You run down the list of things we thought we could accomplish and you have to wonder what we thought we were thinking,’ says a Bush Administration member who joined on in 2001. ‘You get the impression that we’re more than listless. We’re sunk.'”
Related:
Bush-Bashing in Aspen
Robert Novak breaks the code of silence: “For two full days, George W. Bush was bashed. He was taken to task on his handling of stem cell research, population control, the Iraq war and, especially, Hurricane Katrina. The critics were no left-wing bloggers. They were rich, mainly Republican and presumably Bush voters in the last two presidential elections.
The Bush-bashing occurred last weekend at the annual Aspen conference sponsored by the New York investment firm Forstmann Little & Co. Over 200 invited guests, mostly prestigious, arrived Thursday night (many by private aircraft) and stayed until Sunday morning for more than golf, hikes and gourmet meals. They faithfully attended the discussions presided over by PBS’s Charlie Rose on such serious subjects as ‘global poverty and human rights’ and ‘the ‘new’ world economy.’ The connecting link was hostility to President Bush.” (townhall.com )
Happy Equinox
“The Witches’ Thanksgiving and the second harvest. Day and night are of equal length, looking forward to the days’ shortening. The Autumn Equinox is the time of the descent of the Goddess into the Underworld. We also bid farewell to the Harvest Lord who was slain at Lammas. Welsh legend brings us the story of Mabon, who dwells, a happy captive, in Modron’s magickal Otherworld — his mother’s womb. Only in this way can he be reborn.”
Which one is the pornographer?
“An amateur porn Web site allows soldiers to trade images of dead Iraqis for access to pictures of naked women.” (Salon)
