Platform Florida is just a couple of months away. This is our new poster. It was done by MELLISSA VAN HOOSE. It was great to see the progression from the first poster to the final one. Nice just Mellissa. As many of you know I'm the Curator for Platform Florida. This week we are starting the process of picking the different artist that will exhibit in the show. Some of the work just blows me away! Its going to be hard to choose which ones get in and which ones don't. The whole process really doesn't sit well with me. I know how it feels when you get that letter in the mail and it says, "Rejected." Anyway, I do hope you keep the date open, its going to be a great night for art. Speaking of art. My work has shut down since may. I have done maybe two pieces, but I have a feeling that its going to start back up very, very soon. Sometimes we need others to inspire us, and most of the time all I need is a little FOOTBALL...........

So, I'm pretty sure that before they got married, Coach and Christine had some kind of pseudo-rocky relationship. Like, I think there were hell of episodes where the whole premise is that Coach would screw something up and Christine would get mad and then Coach would have to come up with some sort of oafy, yet creative way to make it up to her/apologize. Then she would forgive him even though he probably didn't deserve to be forgiven and they would hug and kiss and then she'd probably say some one liner that totally delighted the audience and demonstrated that she was still a strong-willed person and then the credits would roll. I would estimate that this was the general story arc for roughly five episodes a season.

Anyway, despite this constant false-anger-cum-gruding-apology plot line, I seem to remember a period of time where they broke up or maybe almost broke up; I'm not sure which. Certainly things were tenuous. This was totally stupid because it was obvious neither one of them actually wanted to break up and everyone knew that of course they were going to get back together. During this time I think they probably went back to standard Luther/Dauber/Coach zany hijinx and/or football-centric plots, but they'd have to throw in a requisite line or two about Christine. Maybe they'd even make a joke about it like Luther would bring it up by being all: "How're things with Christine?" And Coach would just sort of glare at him and shake his head and then a few seconds later maybe the Athletic Director would come in and be all: "How're things with Christine?" and Coach would do the same thing and then the Athletic Director would turn to Luther for a little sympathy and Luther would also be doing the same thing, just shaking his head. This was probably hilarious.

I think this period of time was when the actress who played Christine actually had to leave for some reason.

Stylized 3D illustration about the power of consumers when it comes to online rating of products and services.

More at Sevensheaven.nl

They were originally on some Kos & Mo planet, and I liked them so much I put them on my calling card.

Some of you (well, many of you) may have noticed that the "People Similar to You" zone is empty sometimes. Trust me, that shouldn't be happening. Our crack team is hammering on this as you sleep and with luck we'll have some solution in the next day or so. Sorry.

POSTSCRIPT TUESDAY: Okay, I think we've fixed this now. Now, to slow down and improve the useability of the Reviews feed...

In my previous post regarding eTopps, I alluded to the fact that Topps did not go forward with all of my suggestions. Now that that cat is out of the bag, here's the full list I proposed to Topps. The listings in bold are cards that will be part of the set.

1952 Ted Williams, Boston Red Sox
1982 Ryne Sandberg, Philadelphia Phillies
1984 Traded Roger Clemens, Boston Red Sox
1954 Stan Musial, St. Louis Cardinals
1951 Bowman Joe DiMaggio, NY Yankees*
1982 Balboni/Elway/Righetti, NY Yankees Future Stars
1952 Satchel Paige, St. Louis Browns
1962 Maury Wills, LA Dodgers
1976 Reggie Jackson, Baltimore Orioles
1974 Dave Winfield, Washington Nat’l.
1964 Masanori Murakami, SF Giants
1989 Jeff Bagwell, Boston Red Sox #4 Draft Pick
1985 Barry Larkin, Team USA
1976 Mark Fidrych, Detroit Tigers
1985 Cal Ripken Jr/Sr, Father/Son
1989 Sammy Sosa, Texas Rangers Future Star
1952 Ralph Kiner, Pittsburgh Pirates
1985 Will Clark, Team USA
1954 Ralph Kiner, Chicago Cubs
1991 Pedro Martinez, LA Dodgers Future Star
1969 Thurman Munson, NY Yankees
1976 Traded Cecil Cooper, Milwaukee Brewers

*DiMaggio will be on 1952 Topps

As discussed previously, the beginnings of the Community are online. Let's start with first things: FRIENDS IS NOT GONE. It is slightly less accessible, but i promise y'all Friends users, shortly, the overview content on your Friends will dominate this Community page. If you have no Friends it will be pretty much as you see it now. But if you do have Friends you'll have a few additional regions on this Community Home page that will be familiar to Friends users from ancient days -- including a Friends Activity area, Most Loved, Most Hated, that kind of stuff. The quizzes will be here too at that time.

(Almost Interesting Fact: when asked, most people say the quiz is dumb, yet a majority of Friends users do in fact play the quiz when it is presented. I chalk this up as a guilty pleasure.)

I will repeat this for the sake of our new readers (or old readers who skim): This is going to be a process of releasing elements here, that until they are all rolled out this area might feel... lacking. I like hearing your comments but please do know there is more to this than, uh, this.

Also: You are NOT going to be exchanging notes with strangers, nor are strangers going to be leaving you notes. I don't want that. You don't want that. There will be a way for mutually interested parties to connect, but no one who isn't interested will even notice it. More on this kind of feature when the time is right.

Okay, with that being said, have at it. Post your feedback (but mind you: i'm not going to respond to whoever posts something that says "What happened to Friends?") I hope this is fun. Here's my request: show this page to folks who are not blog readers - your friends and family, and see if the page is interesting to them. That's something i'd like to know. Cheers.

Surrey School Board Trustee Heather Stilwell gained national attention this past May by proposing that The Great Global Warming Swindle be made available in Surrey high schools alongside An Inconvenient Truth in order to ensure students are offered a "balanced perspective" on the issue of global warming.

The Board heard her proposal in May and unanimously passed the following motion:

THAT WHEREAS it has been reported in the media that all secondary schools in the Province will be provided with a copy of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”; and WHEREAS this movie is advancing one particular view of the world’s climate change based on ice, etc.; and WHEREAS many scientists world-wide have expressed scepticism about this scientific accuracy; and WHEREAS it is our role as Trustees to ensure that students are provided with accurate information and a balanced perspective when there is credible information presented on two sides of an issue.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the school district’s Instructional Resources staff ensure that the resource “The Great Global Warming Swindle” if approved by the district’s Learning Resource Committee, and/or any other resource the committee identifies that provides a balanced view of global warming, be made available to our schools.

Chairperson Wilson called the question on the amended motion and it was CARRIED unanimously.

I contacted Heather Stilwell last week who said, "As we left it at the end of June, staff were working on getting the kind of permission rights that we require for school use. It is certainly my expectation that this will be available in September."

The Great Global Warming Swindle has been widely criticized for misrepresenting global warming science and the opinions of researchers. In an embarrassing appearance, the film's director Martin Durkin was recently interviewed on ABC Australia where he was confronted about the film's inaccuracies and offered little information in his own defence.

For as long as global warming has been at the forefront of the media, there has been climate change deniers muddying the public discourse and slowing progress towards solutions.

The press, our politicians, and even the progressive blogosphere, have been integral in giving these "skeptics" a voice - by accommodating opinions that are patently false, and lending authority to those engaging in an agenda of misinformation.

While deniers arguments gain coverage in the mainstream thanks to so called "balanced reporting", bloggers are to blame for freely publishing deniers comments regardless of how demonstrably false they are - a practice that gives the false impression of a debate about the facts of climate change when in reality there isn't one.

There are those who are genuinely misinformed or under-informed about global warming and to their credit seek new information and correct their opinions as they learn more. For the rest - those that knowingly perpetuate lies, or stubbornly refuse to consider new information - it is time that they were treated for what they are, the intellectual children of the online community.

To that end, today represents the beginning of a new comment moderation policy at The Conscious Earth. The following rules will go into effect immediately:

• Anyone making ad hominem attacks in the global warming debate will have their comments summarily rejected.
• Commenters that regurgitate an existing and previously debunked skeptic argument will be directed to the Grist's Skeptics Page, where they can learn the facts behind the false evidence they are citing.
  
• Subsequent comments regarding the point in question will be accepted only if they provide new evidence that counters the conclusions of the scientific community or that represents new findings not previously discussed in the blogosphere.

In the name of genuine climate change debate, I encourage all members of the green and scientific community to take a similar approach. I'll be placing this post at the top of The Conscious Earth's Top Posts section. Feel free to link to it if helpful. You can also use the following form letter for responding to comments.

Public debate requires learning, openness to new information, arguments that address issues, freedom from personal attacks, and the basic ability for rational discourse. By accommodating deniers, and their refusal to engage in any of these behaviours, we've all played a role in lending authority to their irrational opinions and in slowing progress towards solutions.

Nobody would spend a decade debating bed time with a 5 year old. It's now long past due to end the current climate change "debate" and send deniers to bed, without their supper.

It's that time again, and as this site celebrates its 3rd birthday, I'm very happy to announce that long-time supporter Dave Haddock has sent us FANTASTIC news about the TV series of Last Chance To See featuring Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine.

Dave went to a talk by Mark Carwardine last week in Rochester, where Mark announced that he would begin filming the TV series later this year (and into next) alongside Stephen Fry. They are going to re-visit all the places he went to with Douglas Adams, including where the animals are extinct. As the Yangtze River Dolphin is already "functionally extinct" they also plan to go and see the Ganges River Dolphin in India to highlight its plight. Most of the people that he met in 1989/90 are still working on the same projects, so it will be marvellous to catch up and see how things have progressed, for better or for worse.

As a result of this announcement, expect to see Ganges River Dolphin news postings on this site soon...

And now to our new fundraiser for 2007/2008. Since there approximately 720 Mountain Gorillas left in the world, I thought it would make a good target to try and raise $720, $1 for every single gorilla up there in the Virunga Mountains.

I have established a brand new Firstgiving donation page called "720 Dollars for 720 Mountain Gorillas", where we'll be raising funds for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. Douglas Adams was a great supporter and patron of the charity, so many thanks in advance for your anticipated generosity! Anyone can donate, from anywhere in the world, the site is secure, and you can contribute as much or as little as you can afford. $1 will do, as that's one Mountain Gorilla towards our target!


Also, if there's a website address you'd like to promote, please send me the URL and a short description, and I'll be happy to build a links list to promote your favoured site. We're a Google PR5 you know... Note: Nothing offensive please!!

Thanks again to Dave Haddock at ZZ9.

Well, back at least.

I had a terrific week in Nashville--thanks for all the well-wishes! Somewhere between prayer and Xanax I lost my speaking fear--it was a comfortable room, and I had lots of PowerPoint slides.

I had some terrific meals. At Mambu, there were lobster rolls and Chicken Joan of Arc, which featured feta cheese, olives, and tomato over a grilled chicken breast, all topped with a fresh date. At Sambucca, it was an amazing filet topped with gorgonzola. The Vanderbilt campus was beautiful, and the weather was less humid than expected. It was a nice week. I wasn't a serious low-carber but I got LOTS of exercise just walking, walking, walking.

Now, back to reality. My last day at work is August 8, so I'll be trying to finish up a lot of projects and not leave things in bad shape. At night, it'll be paint, clean, pack, ad nauseum. I'd feel better about everything if I had a little crystal ball and could see where things were going as far as selling the house and actually making the move, but I guess that's where faith comes in, yes?

The national baseball media has given Manny Ramirez plenty of grief over the years over his hair. And yet for all their bluster, there’s nothing even slightly revolutionary about Manny’s hair. Manny is not simply being Manny, he’s being baseball. Baseball players and bad hair have gone hand in hand since Harry Wright refused to comb his beard for old food before the first Cincinnati Red Stockings game in 1869. Since then, bad hair has been a requirement for those who want to join a big league club.

Bad hair isn’t just an endearing facet of baseball; it’s struck other major sports through the years as well. Football? Been sufferin’ since the late Sixties, and hockey since the Seventies. Just because they wear helmets doesn’t mean the bad hair isn’t there. In fact, the NHL’s insistence on the helmet has only helped bad hair flourish (just look at Jaromir Jagr and his SuperMullet for proof).

And where does basketball fit, you may ask? I’d say that basketball players seem to be the most in tune with how normal, non-famous athletes wear their hair. I’d even go so far as to proclaim basketball players the most hair-conscious among players from the four major sports. And yes, I’m aware of what Rick Barry looked like in his playing days.

There are many reasons why I’ve placed basketball players at the top of the heap. First, baseball hair wasn’t just bad for a few years here and there—it’s been consistent. There’s never been any evolution in baseball hair; it’s never gotten better, just stayed consistently inconsistent. Johnny Damon’s Rip Van Winkle beard was just as bad as Cap Anson’s little tuft on his forehead, as bad as Bill Buckner’s encroaching neck hair and as bad as anything Steve Stone ever sported. Second, hockey and bad hair go together like hockey and missing teeth. It’s just a natural fit. Third, a football helmet is not designed to help keep your hair looking sharp—it’s there to keep your head on your neck. Even Burt Reynolds’ perfect coiff was no match for a helmet in The Longest Yard. Those reasons alone almost leave the NBA the clear winners. Here are a few others, in order of importance to the sport’s success:

• Artis Gilmore’s Afro Dr. J’s afro was good, but Artis Gilmore’s afro was great. You could argue that Gilmore dominated because of his size, his scoring touch and his tenacity in the lane. But don’t underestimate the power of the Afro. It added at least six inches to his already gigantic 7’2” frame, and it was never clear where his head ended and his hair began. He could have easily had an IQ over 300 with a brain that big.

• Dominique Wilkins’ Flattop Fade What made ’Nique cooler: his unbelievable skill and dunks or his kick-ass fade? I wanted to get something shaved into the back of my head badly for a very long time, but my hair was not made to accommodate that wish. This is one of my deepest regrets.

• Michael Jordan’s Shaved Head After Jordan became a national star, shaving your head became the biggest thing since short shorts to NBA players. This was only alleviated with the arrival of

• Darius Miles’ Cornrows Braiding never had a place on the national stage before, so that naturally made the appearance of cornrows huge. Like them or not, cornrows pushed the evolution of NBA hair to new heights.

Maybe the biggest reason for the dominance of NBA hair is that once a style gained acceptance in the NBA, players in other sports began to emulate it, thus giving the style legs across the country, and often not just within arena walls, but in popular culture as well. All of the styles I’ve mentioned here (the Afro, the shaved head, the fade and cornrows) existed before NBA players took them for their own. But none of them enjoyed as great a widespread acceptance until after the NBA player made it famous. None of the other sports can lay claim to something like that, simply because bad hair doesn’t need a famous subject to make it better. If anything, they’ll just make it worse.

I finally figured out why my most recent batch of cookies were a miserable failure, and the results of my extensive study make for disturbing reading. Yes, it's all the fault of the USA.*Exhibit 1: The Measuring Cup)Measuring cups are a ridiculous invention, especially when the humble weighing scale already existed. Ingredients have different densities. Thus, a cup full of margarine will not

Newsweek on MSNBC.com has excerpts from an extensive interview with Dr. Richard Leakey in which he discusses the threat facing Congo gorillas and what the world can do to help. The feature also includes a slideshow of graphic images from the recent Mountain Gorilla killings which readers may find disturbing.

Richard Leakey is the founder of Wildlife Direct, a European Union-funded conservation organization based in Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), works to protect the apes in Virunga park. A renowned paleontologist, Leakey’s tough antipoaching measures are credited with putting an end to the elephant slaughter in Kenya in the 1980s. He spoke by phone from Kenya to NEWSWEEK’s Scott Johnson about the recent slaughter of some of the endangered animals, the threat posed by the charcoal industry and what the international community needs to do next.

Read on at MSNBC.com and in Newsweek magazine.

Audio

Cheika Rimitti – N'ta goudami – Because Music
Tinariwen – Cler achel – Indipendiente
Lukid – Fela – Werk werk
Apparat – Fractales Pt.II – Shitkatapult
Denis Jones - ₤ 10 of electricity – Humble Soul
Nine Horses – Serotonin – Samadhi Sound
Arve Henriksen – Glacier descent – Rune Grammofon
Shining – To be proud of crystal colours is to live again - Rune Grammofon
Tussle – Trappings – Smalltown Supersound
Andreaz Heden – Stilla – Compunctio
Bjork – Pneumonia – Universal
Ilaiyaraaja – Kalaam paatha – Angelica
Alex Dingley - Zero's and One's - Kimberley Records
LV feat. Errol Bellot - Globetrotting - Hyperdub
Delia Derbyshire - Delia's Psychadelian Waltz - Trunk Recordings
Nomadic - K1 Part 3 - Touchin Bass
Brian Joseph Davis - Ten Banned Albums Burned, then Played - 1987 (re-edit) - recording club
They Came from the Stars and I Saw Them vs. Reality - They Came from the Stars and I Saw Them - Speak and Spell
Tom Verlaine - Rain, sidewalk - Thrill Jockey
Macolm Middleton - Fight Like the Night - Full Time Hobby
unkle - Burn My Shadow - Surrender All
Stuffy / The Fuses - Spineless - Sour Puss
Mexican Institute of Sound - La Kebradita - Cooking Vinyl
Kenge Kenge - Obare Yinda - Introducing
Jonathan Richman & the MOdern Lovers - Hi Dear - Castle

James Woodford for The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a high-tech egg hunt that is a race against time to save the rhino, whether that be the southern black rhinoceros, or the Northern White featured in Last Chance To See.

Dr. Thomas Hildebrandt is at it again with his $100,000 ultrasound-guided "needle". Who said romance was dead?

Trying to get a one-tonne beast up the duff is a tricky business.

The scene was a blend of a formula one pit stop, an army field hospital, Old Macdonald's farm and a construction site. And that was before one took a good look at the one-tonne beast on the operating table.

Nearly 2¼ hours into surgery at Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo, Dr Thomas Hildebrandt knew he had only a few minutes before his giant, dangerous patient, a 20-year-old, critically endangered southern black rhinoceros, would have to be roused.
[...]
"For the northern white rhinoceros, this technology is the only way to save the species. It's a race against time."

Some better news this morning after yesterday's horrible post about the senseless murder of four adult Mountain Gorillas. allAfrica.com reports that a 5-month old baby gorilla was discovered roaming alone in the undergrowth after losing its mother to the killings.

The baby gorilla, named Ndeze, was badly dehydrated but otherwise fine, the rangers reported. She was taken to the nearby city of Goma, where the young ape will be looked after at the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project.

Ndeze was born on February 17 from now dead mother Safari bringing the Rugenge family to 12 gorillas. Another female in the group is expected to give birth.

We've mentioned Ndeze before on the site, because Paulin Ngobobo's Gorilla Protection blog has covered the baby's life since his birth and has published some great photos of the infant.

The real title of this post is Ben Sells Out, Part 2.

Back in January, Topps got in touch with me about helping them checklist a set for eTopps. Needless to say, I was torn. Working for and/or with Topps has been a lifelong dream, and yet here I was, routinely poking fun at their sets and being critical of their products. Lucky for me, they had no stipulations that I had to follow for participating (like no bad-mouthing the company). I think I've kept up my part of the deal over the past seven months; I've not held back with criticism of the situation surrounding Topps, nor about any of their products I've found fault with.

It's probably no big deal, but just so everything is out in the open, I wasn't paid. Actually, that's not true. They paid me in baseball cards, which may sound dumb to most people (my girlfriend thought it did), but I found kind of fun. But enough about my involvement.

If you read SCD, you've probably seen the ads for the all-encompassing VIP tickets offered at The National in Cleveland. Part of that package are a handful of cards from this eTopps set, dubbed the Cards That Never Were. I think the ones at The Nat are going to specially stamped or something. The ones available through eTopps are like other eTopps cards. I think the biggest difference is that these cards will be in that year's original design and (hopefully) won't be plastered with the gaudy eTopps logo.

Here's the official line on the product (I didn't write this):


Introducing eTopps "Cards That Never Were"!

eTopps has gone back in history and created a classic collection of cards that never were! Each card has a unique story and all together the collection will be an instant classic. The collection will include:

* The ultimate tribute card: a 1952 Topps Joe DiMaggio!
* A stunning 1952 Topps Ted Williams and 1954 Topps Stan Musial card! Both players had exclusives with Bowman in the early 50's and as a result did not have Topps cards. Now you can own them!
* Whitey Ford left baseball to serve his country in the Korean War; as a result Whitey never had a '52 Topps card. Now you can...
* Nolan Ryan broke into the Big Leagues in '66 with the Mets, but it wasn't until '68 that Nolan got his rookie card. Now you can get his '67!

All cards will be sequentially numbered and delivered on beautiful eTopps technology. We will offer autographs on many of these cards, which will make them even more special!

The Cards That Never Were will be offered starting Monday August 6th at 1pm EST. The collection will be offered weekly and over time so please be sure to visit eTopps often!


And while Topps didn't end up going with all the guys and issues I had proposed (I still think a 1951 Bowman DiMaggio would be cool, and a 1966 card of Masanori Murakami would go over huge right about now, what with the renewed interest in all things Japanese baseball), the checklist they did decide on is pretty strong, plus there will be autographed versions available. There are 12 subjects in the set, including the ones pictured in this post.

The set doesn't officially debut until August 6th, offered through the eTopps site.

Taken in Mexico, Do you remember when you were young and your parents made you dress up really nice for Church? I always asked my mom, why we had to dress up to go to church, her answer was "because." I had a red coat and white pants! Its probably the only time I ever owned a suit. Those were good times. This moment between these two kids brings a smile to my face. She has such a love in her face doesn't she? Enjoy the weekend folks, spend it with the people you love.

The BBC reports on the tragic execution of four more Mountain Gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This brings the total number of Mountain Gorilla killings to SEVEN since January 2007. What a senseless WASTE.

The bodies of three females and one male were discovered by rangers earlier this week in the Virunga National Park.

Officials said the "executions" were not the work of poachers because they would have taken the bodies.
[...]
Because poachers would have sold the bodies as food or trophies, conservationists think the apes were killed by a group that was trying to scare wardens out of the park.

Some older news here, but Radio Australia reported back in June that a number of Komodo Dragons were being relocated after one of them mauled a nine year old boy to death.

An estimated 1,200 Komodos live on the island, part of a national park of the same name, and seven are known to be living near where the boy was killed.
[...]
They say the dragons, which grow up to three metres long, go wherever they smell meat and there are no guarantees they won't approach villages again,.

Police say they assume the boy's killer is among the group that is being moved.

The July edition of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund field news has been online for a week or two.

News from Karisoke
Changes continue to happen among the composition of the mountain gorilla groups we monitor from the Karisoke Research Center. Here is the continuing story of two females and a hopeful silverback leader named Rano.

Bwenge’s Subgroup Transitions
Another interaction among the gorilla groups we observe has resulted in yet more additions to the ongoing “soap opera” among females, one established group, and one new would-be group leader.

I have some news. It seems the establishment understands the need for a fresh perspective, and so this week I started publishing on Beckett.com.

They asked that I join their site and I was happy to oblige. Starting next week, my writing will go up on Beckett.com on Mondays and Thursdays of every week. I will continue to write on the blog, and hope to have different content in both places (though there may be double-postings). I'm not sure exactly where on the site my commentary will appear. As of now it's listed with the other headlines and under 'Baseball Buzz,' though I'm not sure if that's a permanent placement.

I hope you as reader do not feel that I'm turning my back on you. If anything, my goal is to bring a more independent, critical voice to the very place that needs it most.

I love it when I get to show y'all the new features. Remember what I said: i am building to something here. Every few weeks you get another piece of the puzzle until it starts to look like what it is.

Early next week we will retire the Friends tab. It will henceforth be called "Community" (well, at least until we think of something better). NOTE: This does not mean the Friends feature will be gone - on the contrary, Friends is an important element for people in our community. The name on the tab is what is changing, and the Friends page itself is getting (sort of) demoted, so you access it from that sidebar. It will be clear when you get there.

There are four main components to this Community "Home" Page: the first is the column on the left labeled "Latest Reviews" -- It is a feed of the latest reviews as they are posted to Netflix, from anyone, on any movie. On each one you'll see the little avatar and Sim% and you can decide as they flow on by whether or not any of the flicks (uh, perhaps i should write "flix") interest you. It will run all the way through thousands of reviews, if you let it...

Tip #1: Moving your cursor into the column will stop the flow; move your cursor out and it starts again.

Next to this zone is another new element: a presentation of custom lists--which are now going to be called "Top 10 Lists" in spite of some of your protests. If you want to call it a custom list, go ahead. But we're writing "Top 10 Lists" on the website. These are not the most recently created lists. These are selected for you individually to have movies in them that we think might interest you based on some guesses about what you like. It's a crude sort of approximation, but custom lists are sort of fuzzy like that, and idiosyncratic, and personal. Check some out that interest you. Each time you refresh the page, the set of lists update. This can be fun. This can also drive you crazy. You'll see. It's not totally on purpose, but i kinda like it. Sometimes an unusual Top 10 List is a neat jumping off point to check out a new reviewer, which leads to their reviews and other Top 10 Lists.... and so on.

We've got a block here showing movies popular in your town. We've had this on the site home page for a long time, but I think its nice here. It's more for curiosity than anything else. What's fun is checking out other areas and seeing what's different there. Your home town. Some place where your friends live.

And finally, down toward the bottom, are a set of four reviewers from netflix, all strangers to you, with some of the highest Sim% we could find. They aren't the "most" similar, I suppose--but they are among the most similar.

I'd like to ask ya'll to explore the possibilities here. What interests you? Do you drill into the Top 10 Lists? Do you add movies to your Queue after discovering them here? How do you feel about those Similar Reviewers? All I'll say about the next few pieces is this: in short order, Friends users will have a few more elements here to approximate a new version of the old Friends Home page. And finally, yes, you'll be able to hang onto the people you find and like here. They won't be your friends and you won't be getting messages from people you don't know. But you will be able to keep an eye on them. And a few other things. But that will have to wait for a little bit. For now, start experiencing this new Community home. And I trust I will get your candid feedback. It's what y'all do best. Next week. Enjoy.

Created this for my daily Nu.nl cartoon. Usually my cartoon images are more stylized and whimsical, but I couldn't resist spending more time than usual on this particular image.

More imagery at Sevensheaven.nl

A geyser of oil sprung up from the streets of a Vancouver suburb yesterday, after a construction crew's backhoe inadvertently broke a pipeline that connected a refinery to a refuelling facility in the harbour.

It's still unknown how much oil was spilled. Though certainly a small spill, the oil quickly made it's way into Burrard Inlent. Photo's below, courtesy of Global TV News.

Your feature ideas are great, and your obvious passion is a tribute, I think, to what we've done so far. So I'm going to have another one of those "out on a limb" conversations here about product design. (It's possibly too much for a blog like this, but...) there was something in a few of your postings that comes up often, and it includes the expression that the solution to a problem is "obvious." This has triggered something in me. A number of new community features will roll out next week and it seemed like a good time to bring you deeper into my world.

There is this idea in product design that can be called a "product tax." It has a few components. The taxes are in addition to the more obvious cost of a new feature -- in terms of the work of designers and engineers. This is what most people think about when prioritizing 1/2 stars or movie privacy. I think inexperienced product developers are too highly focused on this as they prioritize what to build. The first small tax on this is the unanticipated amount of work it really takes to build and support the feature. Take our Movie Privacy feature.

As I said back when it rolled out, the creation was opportunistic: we had built it a year ago and it hadn't been released, it was not particularly "designed" - but it did solve a need and I felt it would be important to Friends users. And heck, Blockbuster even had it. Alright, so it wouldn't take too much time to finish it up and get it on the site, as long as I didn't spend a lot of time making it pretty and efficient. It just "is."

But once it was connected up to other pages, unexpected questions arose: if a movie is hidden, what happens if you review it? Does that "unhide it" or does the review show anyway. What about Watch Now movies? Are those hidden too? Someone discovered that hidden movies DO show up in the RSS Feeds. Should we hide the movies there? Each place where movies need to be hidden requires a little more work to implement. And in some cases, say RSS Feeds, there are engineering reasons why it's harder to hide something than in your Friends' sliders. Now I'm going to make up some numbers to illustrate this, but they are just made up: let's say 25% of our members use Friends. And 10% use Watch Now. It's possible that only 1% of Watch Now users are also Friends users. And not everyone in that group wants or needs privacy-- maybe only 10% of them. So to add this simple Movie Privacy page, and make it work "right" we have to think about and engineer this hiding for Watch Now even though it's highly unnecessary: 25% of our Friends users need Movie Privacy, but only a fraction of a % need Privacy applied in the Watch Now area. (And for the record, Movie Privacy DOES work on Watch Now titles). The point is that it was easy to create the page, but finding all the strings leading away is harder and creates a tax on releasing the feature. We tend to make something work only when a reasonably large percentage of people want and need the feature, or if common sense dictates we do it anyway, expecting more people to be using it later on. But as obvious as the feature is, one needs to be careful following all these strings and considering that additional work in the feature. But as i said, this is only the "small tax" here. I think product designers are well aware of this tax.

The larger tax is the one frequently missed. Once the new feature is created, it adds a lot of software to an already large pile of software that is our website. And now whenever someone working on any other part of the site has the idea for some cool new feature -- one that might be VERY important to lots of people, and VERY cool, the building of it must take into consideration all the other things it touches. As Steve goes and builds Watch Now features, he is belabored with the strings of Movie Privacy. If I want to add something about notes or reviews, I can't just build it quickly and get it out, i have to consider all the permutations that may involve privacy and make sure each is logical. And the more of these things you add, the more difficult and slow it is to do other features.

This is the hidden tax. It's starts small, but expands rapidly. Products (and websites) often get slower and slower to release new features because they spend an increasingly large percentage of their time just dealing with the baggage of the old features. If those old features are great, that's just business. But if those old features don't add much value, or only add value to the 1/2% of people who write reviews, use RSS feeds AND use Friends, then one must consider if the cost is worth it.

The discipline, therefore, is to generate new features, make them good for a lot of people, and keep an eye on how much value they really add. And after some period of time (it could be half a year, or a few years) if they aren't being used by many people, kill them. Otherwise they stack up in an endless pile that must be weeded through by customers and engineers alike.

And there is one more factor to consider: in many cases, adding more features diminishes the usability of the existing features. People only have so much attention (particularly for a website). If I have one button, you can click on the button. But if I add a second button, we have seen over and over again, that often people don't click on either button. There is confusion. There is choice where there was none. Overall user experience can get worse when you add features, and the exact opposite of what you want to happen occurs. We think we've added something people want, but fewer people see the features in total. Weird, but true. Less is more.

You are sincere when you suggest a new obvious feature, and it may even be clear to us the feature is cool. We consider the costs and benefits and then build them. But we also think of the tax, and need to think of the bigger picture, of a site 3 years from now that does all kinds of great things, things we KNOW many people (most people) want. If this cool little thing now is going to impact that supercool big thing then, we have to decide whether this thing is worth it. These are HARD decisions, there is no right answer in many cases.

As I mentioned, my brother is a Hollywood screenwriter, and I was a movie and TV editor in a former life. Writers have this notion of "killing your young" -- a rather crass way to describe the painful process of writing and editing out stuff that you like. For me as an editor, the way I learned it was like this: editing a movie is not about taking out the bad stuff. editing is about taking out the good stuff to make the remaining stuff better. You don't usually see all the stuff removed to make your favorite movies so good. But trust me, some of it is great, and you'd think they were idiots for cutting those scenes or lines. But the result is the thing.

Please keep your suggestions and debate flowing. We all read this stuff and it's good to hear. Many of your ideas are being implemented while you read this. So thank you.

Anyway, welcome to the inner conversation.

Every time I go through a few stacks of loose cards, more and more old cards of Hall of Famers seem to pop up. It’s weird. Back in the mid-Nineties, these were the geezers either just retiring or getting ready to call it quits. Guys like George Brett, Paul Molitor, Nolan Ryan and Tony Gwynn, Andre Dawson, Cal Ripken and Dale Murphy. You wanted their card, sure, but it was obvious that the extended youth movement could only occur with their collective exit.

Well, it appears the joke was on us. Hideo Nomo? While it’s unlikely that he’s selling used cars somewhere or greeting guests on a riverboat casino, he sure as hell isn’t wending his way to the Hall of Fame. Neither is any guy named Jason Bere, Jeffrey Hammonds or Raul Mondesi. And what of those old timers? Now they’re baseball immortals. Regular cards of these guys used to be cheap (except Hobby Gods Ripken and Ryan), and now that they’re frozen in carbonite in Cooperstown, most rookie and early card prices have jumped accordingly.

Wait a minute… Dale Murphy’s not in the Hall of Fame. And neither is Andre Dawson. You know, it’s funny: I always just assumed that guys like Dawson and Murphy would waltz into the Hall. In fact, there’s a whole gang of old players who seem poised on the precipice of enshrinement (or at least eventual Veteran’s Committee acceptance), but whose denial wouldn’t surprise me.

From these same few loose stacks I pulled cards of twenty-nine ex-players who might fit this description:

Guys Who Once Had a Shot, However Minor, But Probably Not Anymore
Steve Garvey, Dave Parker
Vince Coleman, Dwight Gooden
Don Mattingly, Andy Van Slyke
Ron Gant, Tim Raines
Frank Viola, Mark McGwire
Jose Canseco, Lance Parrish
Fernando Valenzuela, Will Clark
Juan Gonzalez, Jack McDowell

Guys Who Will Probably Be Voted in By the Veterans’ Committee
Orel Hershiser, Jim Rice
Bert Blyleven, Lee Smith
David Cone, Dale Murphy

Guys Who Will Make It In
Andre Dawson
Rich Gossage
Fred McGriff

Guys I’m On The Fence About
Andres Galarraga, Joe Carter
Dave Stewart, Bernie Williams
Jack Morris

Also, I only found six guys who’ve retired in the last few years who I would say are a lock for the Hall: Roberto Alomar, Jeff Bagwell, Rickey Henderson, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez and Larry Walker (you know, I’m not entirely sure that Walker’s retired). And yet, if the case of Jim Rice has proven anything, it’s that you can be one of the game’s biggest stars, put up mind-blowing stats for your career (or at least three-fourths of your career) and still be denied entry, year after year.

So what about their cards? And really, by ‘cards’ I mean only those issued during the retired player’s active playing days. Being enshrined in Cooperstown can do wonders for the value of a player’s cards (just ask Bruce Sutter). But what about those players who don’t quite make it? It would follow that their cards aren’t really worth very much, if anything at all. That’s the problem with speculating in baseball cards: there aren’t many things an ex-player can do to validate his career. If a player falls just short of enshrinement, all the great stats in the world don’t really matter.

I really hate to be one for ‘all or nothing’ type arguments. I tend to think that there’s a large gulf of gray area in between the poles in any argument. But when it comes to value in baseball cards, there’s just no way that a card of Sam McDowell will ever be worth as much as a Bob Gibson, or a Jack McDowell as much as a Roger Clemens. Quite simply, for all the dominance of Sam and Jack on the mound, neither one is a Hall of Famer and neither one is ever likely to be a Hall of Famer. OK, I can think of one instance where it doesn’t matter if the guy’s in the Hall: Gil Hodges. Still, I’d bet you that if he were in, his cards would be worth more than they are.

Next time you’re scanning the box scores, reading the paper or attending a card show, watch the guys whose careers are drawing to a close. Are they still dominating, or are they coasting into retirement? I can think of maybe a handful of active players towards the ends of their careers who have a legitimate Hall of Fame shot:

Mike Piazza, John Smoltz
Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux
Ken Griffey, Jr., Frank Thomas
Craig Biggio, Roger Clemens

Barry Bonds deserves his own category, because while he truly dominated in ways that McGwire and Sosa could only dream about, what he does and how he handles himself in the next six to eight years will determine where he—and his cards—will spend eternity.

First of all, i'm not a company spokesman. Second, I write about what i'm working on here, and what I know personally. The operation of the network, or the databases, isn't in my field of expertise. I can tell you it was down a long time, and that it was the most significant outage in the last 9 years, and lots of people appeared to be working very hard to get things fixed. And I can tell you things seem to be fixed now. But the thing I wanted to say about it was this: as bad as yesterday was in so many dimensions, it was also incredible to witness and experience. We came together internally, there was a sort of steely determination and focus that really seemed to bring out the best in everyone. There is an odd clarity that comes from pain like that. There was no finger pointing, just lots of teamwork. And more than anything in recent memory, it actually made me feel great to be working at netflix, taking on these challenges, and excited for what we are doing. I know it was lousy for every one of you out there. It was pretty lousy in here, too. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Anyway, I'm glad it's a new day. Back to work.

A couple of weeks ago, Cowboy reminded me that when we visited NZ and failed to go whale-watching, we swore we would return to remedy the situation. Kaikoura is one of the world's most accessible whale-watching areas.I left it to Cowboy to sort out the transport and get Friday afternoon off work, and I booked us a B&B for a couple of nights. You can fly directly from the hometown to Kaikoura,

The Pearson Famiy. My dad gave me this picture, so we could get some copies made. I don't know the names of all the people but I do know that my grandfather and grandmother are the 2nd and 3rd from the top left (click on the image to make it bigger). Once I get a better scan, I will find out all the names and post them. I owe a lot to my grandparents and to my family, especialy my grandmother for giving me her books so I could tear and rip them apart for my Polaroid Collages. I know she wouldn't have minded me putting them to good use......

Three fishermen from Wales have invented a box that can be fixed to the exhaust outlet of any vehicle and safely capture greenhouse gas emissions.

However, in addition to reducing the vehicle emissions by 85% to 95%, the Greenbox goes one step further by providing the raw ingredients for new biofuel production. Once full, the Greenbox can be detached from the vehicle and sent to a bioreactor where it provides food to algae that can then be converted to bio-diesel.

Through a chemical reaction, the captured gases from the box would be fed to algae, which would then be crushed to produce a bio-oil. This extract can be converted to produce a biodiesel almost identical to normal diesel.

This biodiesel can be fed back into a diesel engine, the emptied Greenbox can be affixed to the car and the cycle can begin again.

The process also yields methane gas and fertilizer, both of which can be captured separately. The algae required to capture all of Britain's auto emissions would take up around 1,000 acres

Although there are no immediate plans for production, the product has gained the attention of UK Labour MP David Hansen, and Toyota and GM have reportedly spoken to the inventors. Facilities and infrastructure are obviously lacking for both the mass production of the Greenbox and the associated biofuel production chain. However, at the bare minimum the announcement shows the sort of ecological and self sustaining solutions that are waiting to be discovered. Time will tell if it becomes economically viable.

Story via Reuters.

There has been nearly a ticker-tape parade’s worth of commentary and appreciation for ‘The Return of the Baseball Mustache, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Grow Some Goddamned Facial Hair.'

But I’m sorry—is the rest of the country blind? Pro athletes have had a passion for facial hair for the past three or four years. Have others already forgotten that Johnny Damon lived under a rock for an off-season and grew an Old Man in the Mountain, Father Time birdhouse beard? And have they not noticed the plague of the goatee that has spread across professional sports? I hold in my hand a stack of 59 cards, taken from 2006 and 2007 Topps, of players and managers sporting a sideless beard.

I, for one, am happy that the mustache is coming back. I was just watching Sean Penn in The Assassination of Richard Nixon and his character’s mustache comes to symbolize the pent-up desperation and aggression rattling around inside. What are baseball players if not vehicles for our vicarious expression of emotion? And hell, any college senior can tell you the goatee won’t help you score…unless you hang out at a Viennese coffee house, trading Marxist barbs and passing off variations on permanent revolution theory as your own with your fellow Trotskyites, or you have a card table on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley and sell “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For McGovern” bumper stickers. Then you need all the help you can get.

Cover illustration for the Dutch Volkskrant Banen magazine.

More at Sevensheaven.nl

Audio

DEEPCHORD presents ECHOSPACE - Elysian (Modern Love)
MARKUS SCHMICKLER with HAYDEN CHISHOLM - Infinity In The Shape of a Poodle (Hapna)
BEN FROST - Theory Of Machines (Bedroom Community)
DOUBLENDS VERT - Cistern #4 (Line)
MEM1 - Somniferum - (Interval)
2562 - Channel Two (Tectonic)
PENDLE COVEN - Brick Tutor (Modern Love)
CORSANO-FLOWER - The Fifth Truth (No-Fi)
JANDEK feat LOREN CONNORS, CHRIS CORSANO & MATT HEYNER - Manhattan Tuesday (Afternoon Of Insensitivity) Pt.3 (Corwood)
LOREN MAZZACANE CONNERS & KATH BLOOM - Moonlight (With Robert Crotty) (St. Joan)
VALGEIR SIGURDSSON feat BONNIE PRINCE BILLY - Kin (Bedroom Community)
KOOL G RAP AND DJ POLO - Streets Of New York (Cold Chilin')
MORTON FELDMAN - Christian Wolff In Cambridge (Hanssler Classic)
NICO MULHY - Clear Music (Bedroom Community)
NILS OKLAND - Slor (Rune Grammofon)
JOHANN JOHANNSSON - Joi & Karen (Touch)
FRANCOIS TETAZ - Statesman Deville (Rubber)
ELEGI - Despotiets Vesen (Miasmah)
SKALLANDER - Dusting The Gallows (Type)
SAMAMIDON - Little Johnny Brown (Bedroom Community)
MORNING RECORDINGS - The Welcome Kinetic (Loose Thread)
HELIOS - In Heaven (Type)
PROFESSOR EMERSON MEYERS - Moonflight Sound Pictures (Excerpt) (Creel Pone / Westminster Gold)
HILDUR GUDNADDOTTIR, BJ NILSEN and STILLUPPSEYPA - Temple Of The Holy Tooth (Quecksilber)
IRR. APP. [EXT.] - Cosmic Superimpostion (Excerpt) - (Errata In Excelsis)
COSTIN MIEREANU - Parta Prima (Excerpt) - (Creel Pone / Cramps)

I get a lot of email from readers. Sometimes I can answer them and sometimes I need to enlist the help of others. If you have an idea of a card for this reader, please leave a comment on this post or email me and I'll make sure they receive it. A time capsule is a good idea (God knows I tried it at least once) so try to get past the part about being able to predict the future in terms of prospective card value. -Ben

Dear Card Blog:

I am putting a time capsule together for my grandson who just turned 2 in June. I am placing a variety of items in the container (letter from great grandparents, grandparents and momentos from them, some of his baby items, info/pics of his parents, comical adult size Tshirt, 18 yr old birthday cards, etc.) and I want to include Andy Pettitte baseball cards when he was an Astro in 2005. My grandson was born June 18, 2005 in the same hospital at around the same time as Pettitte's son. A picture was taken of the nurse's assignment board that displayed both of their names. Also, Andy Pettitte pitched at the first Astro baseball game my grandson attended.

What I would like for you to tell me is, are there any worthwhile card(s) available of him during that time that could possibly be of some value by 2023 when he will open his capsule?

This is the boys' version.
On the other side of the page was printed a similar plane for girls, but it flew out of my computer. I can't find it anymore.

Why am I only finding out about this card now? I'm serious, this is awesome. Given out at Comic Con in 1994 by Bongo & Skybox to promote the upcoming Simpsons set (which is a great little set, if you're a Simpsons fan, and can be had today for under $20), this is an almost perfect parody of the Bill Ripken '89 Fleer card. Also, does anybody know where one can buy a fitted Springfield Isotopes hat?

Speaking of the Ripkens, recent pictures of Cal make it seem that he just has to learn to smile with bottom teeth sticking out and make his eyes real wide to be able to start his second career: as an Uncle Fester impersonator.

The Grist has posted their choices for the 15 greenest cities on Earth. Top place goes to Reykjavik, Iceland on the waves of its commitment to renewable energy a their long-term plan to be fossil fuel free by 2050.

My humble hometown of Vancouver places 5th.

See the complete list at The Grist.

More or less? Sacrosanct page, simple and direct? or highly useful central core that steers your experience, and should it be packed with options, columns, and controls of various kinds. What should it do? How can it be simple yet more powerful? Is drag n' drop working for you? Sounds like various sorting options are highly desired. What else?

Should we make it easy to find people you don't know -- but who might have high similarity to you or just share your movie taste in some small way -- and let y'all communicate with each other? In a perfect world it seems nice and easy enough. In the real world, this can be threatening, may pose some risks, and at best, makes the entire realm of community a little more complicated in that everyone has to set various privacy levels. Power users generally want more features and more openness, but we also want to be useful and to appeal to a more casual user. Can we make it simple for everyone, but still safe for kids/newbies, and fun for the rest?

Here's a sort of placeholder for ongoing conversation about the pros and cons of 1/2 star ratings (or 10 stars, or any other ideas about how you feel about the stars themselves).

Got ideas? Yes, we've heard about your overwhelming desire for a Mac-based availablity. We know it gets better the more movie titles that are available. Here's a place you can tell Steve about your hopes and dreams...

For months, global warming skeptics have been touting The Great Global Warming Swindle as a balanced and fair counterpart to those calling for urgent action on the issue of climate change. In reality, The Swindle is a misleading, dishonest and ill-conceived work of propaganda that is chock full of paid industry mouth pieces while being anorexically thin on genuine evidence.

Nowhere was this better revealed than in a recent interview conducted by ABC Australia's Tony Jones with the Martin Durkin, the film's director. Durkin lurches, sputters and sweats his way through the 10 minute grilling as Jones lines up example after example of omissions and lies that he presented in his film.

For those on the sane side of the spectrum, you are excused from debating this movie with anyone who insists on citing The Swindle as 'evidence' after watching this clip.





Rest in peace GGWS.

See part one of the interview at DeSmogBlog.

A reader asked me to comment on the big controversy swirling around the Kimkins low-carb diet plan. The backstory is this: Kimkins, a plan created by a woman who I know only as "Kimmer," has been getting a lot of publicity lately because of an article in Woman's World magazine calling the program "better than gastric bypass." Then low-carb blogworld guru Jimmy Moore started the Kimkins program and has been having a lot of success with it.

But the controversy swirls both about the diet and about Kimmer herself. Kimmer keeps a low profile--she doesn't do interviews, for example, and the "self-portrait" photos on the Kimkins website are of what appears to be completely different people. So, she's a bit of a mystery. I don't know what her reasons are for staying hidden and using photos that may not even be her. Frankly, I don't care.

The issue for me is the diet.

Does Kimkins work? Yes, it does. Absolutely. The basic Kimkins diet is not very different from Atkins induction, except with low fat as well as low carbs, and keeping up with your calorie intake. You eat 20 or fewer grams of carbs (and don't subtract fiber grams), no sugar alcohols or other special "low carb food," lean protein, a couple of cups of salad or a cup of a green veggies and "enough fat" to make it palatable. That's it. There's also a "quick start" version that is a bit more spare.

The thing that turned me off the program -- for me, as a personal decision -- was not the program itself. Like Atkins induction, if you follow the program and pay attention to how you follow it, you can keep it pretty healthy.

But if you really get involved in the Kimkins website community, you'll see where the controversy comes in.

First, fiber consumption is not recommended because it "bulks you up"; taking a half-dose or so of Milk of Magnesia daily is encouraged to "clear things out" and is something Kimmer says she does.

Most folks on the Kimkins discussion boards are eating about 700-800 calories a day and obsessing over it if they "slip up" and eat "too much." If you find yourself losing less than 5-7 pounds a week and e-mail Kimmer about it, she will examine your food logs for the previous week and point out where you're going wrong. I did this a couple of times. I was eating about 900 calories a day and only losing 1-2 pounds a week, so I sent Kimmer my menus--she suggested I reduce the fat that my mushrooms were sauteed in and just use water or Pam, that I cut all cheese from the diet because of the fat, and make sure my protein was the leanest possible. So I did that, and I still, at about 800 calories a day, was losing about 2 pounds a week on the scale. But the scale wasn't telling the story because I developed a whole lot of saggy skin and felt weird. I'm not sure how to describe how I felt but I think the word is "empty." I didn't want to eat--a "desirable" state the Kimkins folks call "SNATT" (slightly nauseous all the time). When I finally broke ranks for Christmas and started eating a bit more, I was ravenous. It was like part of my five senses had shut down and suddenly had awakened.

It finally occurred to me, away from the seduction of the scale, that I had been starving myself. Had I started out from a thinner weight, there would have been little difference between my own diet and that of one of the pro-anorexia proponents.

So, does Kimkins (the diet) promote eating disorders? For me the answer is that, in the long run, you have to take responsibility for your own health regardless of what eating plan you follow. Personally, I could never see that avoiding fiber and taking laxatives made sense from a health standpoint, so I didn't lose weight at the "better than gastric bypass" rate. Unless he's changed his methods, I think Jimmy Moore is also adding fiber into his diet. If you follow the program, use your brain, and don't get sucked into the online community too deeply, Kimkins can be a fairly healthy, very low carb diet. As I said, pretty much very strict Atkins induction as it was originally devised (as opposed to the later version where the good doctor relaxed a bit on the sugar alcohols and other low-carb processed foods).

So, with that, here's my final take on Kimkins. Like any eating program, you have to be responsible in how you interpret it. You could technically adhere to the Weight Watchers "points" program while eating only junk food--but you know that isn't healthy. You can technically adhere to Kimkins while cutting fiber from your diet and cutting your calories down to nothing, but you know that isn't healthy either. I had stalled on Kimkins but when I cycled back to Atkins and started adding more calories and fat into my diet, I started losing again.

I had thought I wanted to lose the weight very quickly and then worry about learning how to eat in the real world. If that's you, then Kimkins works--not as a lifelong plan but as a measure to take weight off quickly.

But what I learned about myself is that I couldn't sustain that level of deprivation for a long-term weightloss period. I learned that I'd rather lose it more slowly and have a little more flexibility in my life.

Bottom line: know yourself, what you need, how things work for you, and use your common sense. Would I go on Kimkins again? It's unlikely--I'm more likely to restart Atkins induction.

But if you have further questions, just ask!

Yep, I'm having heart palpitations--that's how stressed I am these days. I leave tomorrow for a conference in Nashville where I have to teach a class--mmmmm, how I love that public speaking (not)! And it comes at the worst possible time because...

After I return from Nashville I'll have about two weeks to get my house ready to sell (while still working full-time), put it on the market, get packed up, leave my job at Tulane University, move my mom to temporary lodgings in Birmingham, Alabama, and then move myself and my two furkids to temporary lodgings in Montgomery, Alabama. I'll start work at Auburn University in late August but will need to sell my house in New Orleans before I can find a place in Auburn. (Woo-hoo--waving at Bamagal!)

So, yes, I am leaving New Orleans. It has been a long and bumpy two years since Hurricane Katrina and the federal levee failures laid waste to my adopted hometown. I don't really know how to explain people's feelings about New Orleans except to say you either hate it and leave or you love it just as you would love a person. I'm in the latter group, and leaving breaks my heart and makes me feel as if I'm abandoning someone I care about. But changes in my job, coupled with crime, corruption, lack of adequate health care, and rapidly escalating living costs, have convinced me this is a city that needs to be rebuilt and repeopled by younger, wealthier or at least more optimistic people than I. I'm excited about my new job and home, yet I'm already homesick for New Orleans and I haven't left yet.

So, big stressful life changes are coming in the next month. I'll try to keep my online blog-complaining limited. And try to keep the stress eating in check!

And I'll try to blog "from the road" next week but may be spotty--keep checking back.

Now, if you know anyone who might want a nice little Victorian cottage in New Orleans, built in 1901, here she is!

Be assured my friends, getting these reviews to be more useful for ya'll is a high priority for our team. I'll lay out some details shortly. Lots to do, folks. Lot's to do. Thanks for your insights.

Oh, by the way -- i'm implementing some polls over in the right column. It's a start. (Is there anyone better than polldaddy? Seems pretty cool.

On today's menu is a new facial cleanser.My current facial cleanser is nearing its very last drippety-drops. As part of the Fort's quasi-hippy philosophy, I had resolved that when my current cleanser ran out, I would make my own cleanser using a book on natural beauty as a reference guide. The plan is to come up with something I'm not allergic to, yet doesn't need to be paid for with solid

I'm sitting in EWR (Newark Liberty International Airport) hating life.

I had a 7:30 PM flight to Atlanta. Being the savvy traveler I managed to get on an earlier flight via a same-day confirmed seat on Delta. The flight was scheduled for 6:07 PM but due to delays was expected to leave by 6:30 PM.

Then 7:10 PM.

Then 8:40 PM.

Now it's estimated departure time is 9:35 PM.

My original flight left around 8:10 PM.

I screwed myself tonight...

Do you remember chasing grasshoppers when you where little? You know those real big ones! I remember the whole yard being covered with them. I use to try to hit them with my hand when they jumped in the air. I can't remember the last time I saw a grasshopper....

The discovery of a vast underground lake is offering the best hope yet for an end to the war in Darfur. At 30,750 km2 it is the size of Lake Erie and will provide much needed influx of water, and an opportunity for peace, to the Sudan's drought stricken north.

Since 2003, two hundred thousand people have died and a further 2 million have fled the north where water shortages and drought have fueled a human catastrophe of mass migrations and ethnic conflict. With the discovery of this new fresh water resource, plans are moving forward to drill 1000 wells in the area and bring relief to Darfur's people.

The conflict in the region, and the prospect of peace through water, underscores our reliance on the environment and the bigger risks that we're assuming in ignoring the environmental damage that is ongoing throughout the world.

Critics of that view point will point to the overpopulation in the region while turning a blind eye to the same pressures in the United States where the population has swelled to 300,000,000. Critics will downplay the role of environmental damage in bringing on the conflict while ignoring the fact that 12% of the Sudan's forests have been hacked down in past 15 years. Critics will also belligerently shout down the role of climate change in the drought, while embracing fictions and bedtime stories that allow them to ignore all evidence to the contrary and have an easy night's sleep.

Ultimately, it is all about responsibility.

The people of the developed world have built a civilization based on the ideal of personal responsibility. That ideal is the backbone of democracy and the foundation of the free market that drives our economy. What a fitting irony that we are facing unprecedented assaults on our democracy, spiraling debt, and growing environmental carnage while all we can throw up in our defence is litany of excuses.

"It's the Democrat's fault!"

"It's the Liberal's fault!"

"It's all China's fault!"

"It's single mothers' fault",

And the all time winner, "Al Gore's heating bill is too high".

The trend goes far beyond the issue of global warming, and now infects every aspect of our political culture. The reason is simple. We are fat, lazy and more interested in preserving our comforts than taking an honest look at our role in the world's problems. Doing that would mean real responsibility, and there is no time for that in a world of instant gratification and borrowed wealth.

America, and implicitly the modern western world, was built on "Life, Liberty and Freedom". Now the future holds a new American dream with a new call to battle - "Borrow, Spend and Forget"!

It's simple, comfy and easy next to that messy business of personal responsibility.