A mixed bag from all over the place to share, but I just gotta do it…

Mark’s band The Phoenix Trap, is on iTunes. Awesome!

For an addictive video game that is so simple and small it will blow your mind, check out BallDroppings. I love this thing. Under 1 meg!

There are two very large inferences that can be drawn from comments like these and, more broadly, from the current debate over national security issues in policy institutes, academia and professional journals. One is that the Bush administration stands very, very far from the foreign-policy mainstream: liberal Democrats, conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans have more in common with one another than any of them have with the Bush administration. The other conclusion is that the administration’s claim that 9/11 represents such a decisive break with the past that many of the old principles no longer apply is right — but the new principles need not be the ones the administration has advanced. A different administration could have adapted to 9/11 in a very different way. And this is why national security should be, at least potentially, such a rich target of opportunity for a Democratic candidate.

Read the rest in the The Things They Carry (NYTimes).

NASA’s “Spirit” mission to Mars has been breathtaking. Spaceflight Now is the place to go for rapid updates.

First we might begin by asking, to what degree has the media turned to pure speculation? Someone could do a study of this and present facts, but nobody has. I certainly won’t. There’s no reason to bother. The requirement that you demonstrate a factual basis for your claim vanished long ago. It went out with the universal praise for Susan Faludi’s book Backlash, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction in 1991, and which presented hundreds of pages of quasi-statistical assertions based on a premise that was never demonstrated and that was almost certainly false.

But that’s old news. I merely refer to it now to set standards.

Today, of course everybody knows that ?Hardball,? ?Rivera Live? and similar shows are nothing but a steady stream of guesses about the future. The Sunday morning talk shows are pure speculation. They have to be. Everybody knows there’s no news on Sunday.

Read the rest of Michael Crichton’s 2002 speech to the International Leadership Forum.

Ever wonder how those free-speech zones get set up (SFGate)?

Like to develop an Internet Explorer toolbar with .NET (The Code Project)?

Yahoo is going to dump Google (Slashdot).

GWBush’s latest move of political genius looks compassionate and kicks the low skilled American worker’s ass (Yahoo). Isn’t it the gun lobby who said we don’t need new laws – just the current ones obeyed?!? That’s George Bush for ya – President for hard working, tax paying, law abiding Americans!

Oh, and btw, Dolphins are evolving opposable thumbs (Onion) and are due to become the dominant species on Earth.

It’s a reason why I don’t weblog about my team… I don’t want to jinx ’em! Whadda a rough game (Philly.com)! We had to lose sooner or later. I guess getting it out of the way now is best.

Twenty years ago Trevor Ferrell, an 11 year old boy, my own age then too, asked his parents to drive him down to Center City so that he could give blankets and pillows to the homeless. His efforts inspired many.

People often ask Ferrell how they can help, what they can do. “Spend time with your family,” he tells them. “Raise your kids. Be a parent for your kids.

“One day when I was working construction, I saw a father and his son walk by, and the kid was telling a story. The father wasn’t listening. You could see it in the kid’s face – he knew his father didn’t hear him. I’ll never forget the look of disappointment. And I promised I’d never be that kind of father, that I would always be there for my kids.

“They’re the most important thing in life, not the bills I have to pay or running the shop. If you want your kids to be successful, if you want to make sure they never end up homeless or living on the street, love them by paying attention.”

Today Trevor Ferrell still fights the good fight (Philly.com).

So it’s been over a week and has capturing Saddam help to make us safer? Long term I’m sure of it (VOA). Short term the answer is no as we are raising the alert level (Philly.com) as new warnings come in.

I’m surprised this report slipped thru on CBS’s website, and the liberal media did such a nice follow thru. I mean – wasn’t this story just all over the place? Yeah. Uh-huh. Doesn’t matter much since later reports have a lot of backstepping being pushed.

The further things go along, the more I see Bush getting a Reaganesque landslide in next year’s election. As it stands the Democrats are by far a longshot (NYTimes) at putting forth a winner. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to vote for one however. The Republicans are doing a far better job at communicating what people want to hear.

Could technology empower the end of the two party system in America (Washington Post)?

There was a milestone in flight this week – not just a special anniversary but Wednesday SpaceShipOne broke the speed barrier and made it to 68,000 feet (Slashdot)!

Outsourcing is a problem! Outsourcing isn’t a problem! I guess it counts upon whether you are the benefactor or the victim as to your point of view. India is a rising star (BusinessWeek) anyway you slice it.

We’re going to miss you Dave. At least in the weblogging sense 🙂

I should change my subtitle to the weekend weblogger!