Elayne Riggs' Journal (for Leah)

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Liberal Coalition Top Ten
Week of 9/10 thru 9/16/06

I've given up on the baseball games for now - I think all this stupid "magic number" talk has helped make the NY teams complacent, and it's just not that much fun watching them lose - so it may as well be time to take a look at the Liberal Coalition blog posts that caught my eye from this past week:

• Bora warns that smoke gets in your eyes, whether in a church or in analyzing how helpful an addictive substance like nicotine can be in treating depression. Also, his son has a run-in with a new local law regarding the Pledge of Allegiance in schools.

• Chris wants to know, "With Civil War and related titles' delay, what does that mean for the writers and artists of the various series that it affects? Do they continue working like normal just get even more ahead of schedule (and in some cases, try to get back ON schedule)?" Speaking from second-hand experience, artists always try to get ahead of or on schedule, and when there's a delay on the front end with the primary storytellers (writer and penciller) more pressure tends to be put on the folks next down on the assembly line. I've lost track of how often Robin, who is that rare artistic combination of fast and good, has made up time lost by late pencils (some of which were due to late scripts). That said, there's a good chance the writers and artists involved in affected titles from the particular situation Chris cites have already gone through their adjustment period long before the fans learned of the delays. Oh, also of note on Chris' blog are his thoughts on 9/11 and pacifism. I can't believe wanting to stop a cycle of ever-escalating violence is actually seen these days as anti-American and pro-terrorist!

• Echidne reiterates why (scary) men are from Mars - Hill, that is - and imagines the pleasures of spacewalking.

• Jane's FDL Book Salons may be a bit clunky in terms of using blog comments for something which would be better accomplished via a real-time chat mechanism, but they're a great excuse for her to talk books, like her thoughts on Arianna Huffington's On Becoming Fearless and her announcement that Keith Olbermann will be doing the FDL Book Salon on Guy Fawkes Day (easy to "remember - remember, the Fifth of November"!) to talk about his book The Worst Person in the World: And 202 Strong Contenders.

• John tells us a bit about dwarf planet namesakes, shakes his head at right-wing bloggers who recommend getting someone to make the Iraqi trains run on time, and shows what stuff not to put on your cat.

• Jude examines the state of health care in Africa and the obstacles which faced President Jimmy Carter in his hoped-for meeting with former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.

• Kathy thinks President Bush has a funny way of "not politicizing 9/11."

• Keith shares the story of his ex-spiritual rebirth.

• Ken suggets that right-wing bloggers should use the dictionary more often. I'd like to see a non-complacent press corps demand that Bush define words like "freedom" in his press conferences.

• Maru catches a talking points training session.

MercuryX23 is back, now from beautiful Phoenix!

• Michael has a better way to remember 11 September.

• Mike gives us all we need to know about the upcoming election.

Happy belated birthday to Mustang Bobby, who in turn celebrates the coming around of Andrew Sullivan and the coming apart at the seams of just about every radical reactionary remaining.

• Norbizness offers a great way to remember the late great Ann Richards, and reinterprets the President's September 11 address to the nation.

• NTodd has new kittens! They're almost as gorgeous as his first pre-fall foliage photos. And speaking of definitions as we were above, do you know what a primary is, kids?

• Scrutiny Hooligans report that the sun has nothing to do with global climate change. Woohoo baby, that's all us, we've screwed ourselves without any help from that stupid star!

• Steve Gilliard extols the wonders of tea, reviews the path after the Path to 9/11, and reminds us all once again that torture doesn't work, because this pro-torture administration and its supporters need to be told this over and over again.

As an added bonus, because I want to do all my linkage in one post today, here's some recent non-LC blogging that I've found of interest:

• Today is the Global Day for Darfur. "Despite the signing of a Darfur peace agreement on 5 May 2006, the violence in western Sudan has not stopped; in fact, in some parts of Darfur, the violence has grown worse. People are still being killed and raped and displaced - every single day." Eszter provides links to background information. John Amato brings us the video of George Clooney speaking to the UN Security Council on the subject. And Randy Paul and Mércia attended the Refugee Camp Exhibit in Central Park sponsored by Doctors Without Borders.

• Heidi mentioned that yesterday was the first annual Brooklyn Book Festival, run by some of the same folks who used to run the late lamented NY Is Book Country. Did anyone go to this? It's a bit out of our way nowadays.

• Nona reports from Pastafarian HQ about all Ring of Fire's goods for sale.

• I find it incredibly wondrous that Susie Madrak is a self-confessed tetrachromat. Not sure if that explains her migraines, but the scratching wouldn't help. Now see, that's a very familiar sound in this apartment, it's woken us up the past two mornings.

• Justin's been tooling around New York City attending the Daily Show and bumping into cool people and did he call?, did he write?

• Great news - Greg Palast won't be arrested after all; Exxon's backed down, since they didn't go after Google Maps either.

• More good news on the blogger front, as Lisa Fortuner finds a host for the next Carnival of Feminist SF and Fantasy Fans; submission details here. She also expresses her disappointment at current movie previews, none of which even come close to the Mo Movie Measure.

• PZ Myers knows the real reasons for that planetary name change.

• Dangerous veggies being in the news, Pam issues a caution about the Veggie Tales cartoons coming to network TV. Now see, this is where I part company with fellow liberals. I don't think the cartoons ought to be censored of their heavy-handed Christian preaching; that's their whole point. I just wish they were on one of the many religious channels instead of secular network TV...

• John Hodgman finds hobbit homes not nearly as efficient as holes in the ground.

• Billmon wants to know why Mike Judge's Idiocracy isn't getting more PR. He also shares what he's learned since 11 September 2006 and, in another definition-related post, suggests we refer to the radical reactionaries in power as, um, radical reactionaries. (Rather than right-wingers. I've been doing this for awhile now, as you'll see by a perusal of recent posts.)

Well, it's been a couple hours since I started this, and after I finally finish reading Frank Rich's column today it's time to start on dinner. My first rutabaga peel, woo-hoo!

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