Congress may clamp down on MySpace

New legislation from Congress would block access to social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook in schools and libraries, including instant-messaging services.

The bill known as the “The Deleting Online Predators Act” introduced by Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., aims at protecting minors from online child predators.

According to the bill, it “prohibits access to commercial social networking Web sites or chat rooms through which minors” can access obscene or indecent material, be subject to unlawful sexual advances or repeated offensive comments of a sexual nature from adults, or access harmful information.

The bill terms a social-network Web site as one that allows users to create Web pages or profiles about themselves as well as offers communications including a forum, chat room, e-mail or instant messenger, while a chat room is termed a site that allows multiple users to communicate in real time via text.

So create websites, talk through forums and chat rooms, e-mail, etc. Hmm… Sounds like Yahoo and Google would fall under this as well. Methinks the best weapon against online predators on sites like MySpace and Facebook is education and a bit of adult oversight.

Moose win:

Humans have been blamed for slaughtering woolly mammoths and other large ice-age animals into extinction, but new evidence from Yukon suggests this isn’t the case.

Moose were to blame, at least in part, says Dale Guthrie, a researcher at the University of Alaska.

…

A close examination of the fossil record suggests moose and other browsers probably competed against the mammoths and other ice-age grazers for food, Dr. Guthrie says.

Murderers!

As some of you are well aware, I am a comic dork. Yeah, yeah, shock to those who didn’t know, but moving on…

Fantagraphics has been doing a wonderful job in collecting all fifty years of Charles Schultz’s Peanuts in nice hardbound volumes of two years each. These books are released on a somewhat annual basis (supposedly annual, but I believe two came out last year) and are a nice addition to the bookshelf. They’re up to book five (which just recently came out):

Fantagraphics is also in the process of giving collected treatment to George Herriman’s Krazy Kat. But coming this September they’re also going to begin releasing a collected version of E. C. Segar’s Popeye in six hardback volumes:

Six volumes, hardcover. Same size, more or less, as the original Fanta books from long ago (the big Sunday ones). Each book contains half dailies (six to a page) and half Sundays (in color), except for the first which is 3/4 dailies (because Popeye was a co-star in the dailies for more than a year before he showed up in the Thimble Theatre Sundays). Dailies in the front of the book, Sundays in the back (since there is no cross-continuity.) One every six months. We’ve got all the Sundays for the first volume scanned and are working our way through the dailies even as I speak. Introduction and annotations by Bill Blackbeard. A later book will contain a non-strip Segar POPEYE sequence that so far as I know has never been reprinted.

Nice. It’s easier to collect comics when they’re so neatly presented.

I’m not even a Democrat and this kinda stuff leaves me shaking my head:

So if Miller wins the nomination (not likely), which will you do:

1. Continue to bash him out of spite, since he won’t poll more than 40% against Allen anyway (what does it matter?)

2. Help his campaign in order to raise his name recognition for a run for Lt. Governor in 2009.

3. Focus on the Drake/Kellam race, since the Virginia Democratic Party will have officially conceded the Senate race to George Allen.

I’ll probably choose #3. Others?

Followed by comment after comment by Dems stating that they will actively work AGAINST Miller should he win. How utterly “progressive”.

Congrats, it is this kind of thought process that will kill any chance of either Dem even hoping to challenge George Allen in November.

Sorry I missed it last year, man, am I happy to see it come around again.

Yes, June 16-17th will see the second annual Summit on Blogging and Democracy in the Commonwealth held in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. With workshops ranging from “Blogging 101″ to (a very much needed) “Ethics of Politics” it looks to be a great time. I’ll be doing my best to be in attendance (though I said that last year, too).

What are you doing May 20th? $5 and a trip to Gallery 5 from 2-5ish gets you beer and company with fellow bloggers (and readers and others, hey, c’mon out, general public!) from the Richmond area. I’ll be there. You should be too. Even if you’re not from Richmond, c’mon down and enjoy the city for the weekend.

Not quite a Featured Writer like Mr. Villar, but still nice. I wonder how they actually go about selecting these featured stories because twice in a little over a week’s pretty sweet.

kSolo.com let’s you sing, record and share your vocals over any number of karaoke hits online. And it’s now owned by Fox.

Blog Readers Unmasked

In an unscientific Web survey of 36,000 people, Blogads reported that political blog readers tend to be age 41 to 50, male (72 percent), and earn $60,000 to $90,000 per year. Two in five have college degrees, while just a tad less have graduate degrees.

Interesting. Sure, unscientific and therefor a bit skewed, but interesting to note just the same.

Oh, and here I thought I stumbled across this on my own, but Norm had it first.

On May 22, 2005 the world had such unspeakable horrors forced upon it that ever since children cry themselves to sleep every night for absolutely no reason. It also marked the debut of Under The Covers on WVCW! Yay!

So I shall be celebrating the first anniversary of Under The Covers Sunday May 21st but I don’t really know how. Any ideas? I’ve done a live set in the studio already with my pal Paul, should I do another one? Should I just have no show, would that be neat? Rerun the first show? Spend the entire night reading Hemmingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”? What do you all think?

I’m open to suggestions.