Month: June 2006

Virginia Blog Carnival

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up and gaze in awe and wonder at the amazing feats of Virginia bloggers!

Democrats gathered in Charlottesville for a political carnival on Saturday. Greg Bouchillon and J.C. Whitmore were in attendance. No word on the deliciousness of the funnel cake.

Let us journey with Kat (aka Romeocat) as the family goes to the National Air And Space annex out near Dulles (with SWEET photos of neat planes and more). I am jealous.

If fortune telling and future gazing is your thing, Virginia Conservative Chad Dotson knows just who you should get in touch with.

That guy who isn’t that chef Emeril (but still makes a kick ass chicken and veggie dish from what I hear) has some thoughts on the Gay Marriage Amendment. If those don’t tickle your fancy, consider this: If you take the tile of his post “My Thoughts On The Gay Marriage Amendment” and translate it to French using AltaVista’s BabelFish and then translate it back into English, it becomes “My Thoughts On The Merry Amendment Of Marriage”. So just by using the title and translations, we can all assume that he and everyone else who speaks of this “Gay Marriage Amendment” think it’s a merry thing to do. Or so the French would have us believe. On a side note (because I’ve been staying on topic up to now), I’m Not Emeril’s favorite Beatle is the recently late Billy Preston.

Before you leave, be sure to make your own planet (sponsored by Shaun Kenney).

What kind of a carnival would it be without food? Oh, wait. Waldo’s talking about organic and healthy stuff. Carnivals are all about cotton candy and funnel cake and corn dogs and getting sick on the ferris wheel. So ignore Waldo. He’s just talkin’ crazy.

Kilo ventures into the great unknown and pulls back the curtain on the bearded lady we all know and love as Zogby Interactive.

Ghana knocked the US out of the World Cup tourney on Thursday and nobody in Virginia really cared.

Let Spank That Donkey teach you a thing or two about Geo Strategy. His pet peeve is people who fail to use cruise control on the highway. You are all put on notice.

Gasp in shock and horror as Rick Sincere recounts his lunchtime escapade with the one and only Dick Cheney!

Snoopy at RiverCity Rapids highlights a big chunk of people who may be thinking about running off to join the circus in a near future. Seriously, though, Richmond as a 47% graduation rate. Really. Only 47% of Richmond students actually graduate. More than half don’t finish. Where’s the outcry?

If you’re a true carny lover, then please visit the Virginia Blogging Conference Carnival hosted by the one and only Semi Truths.

And now for tonight’s main event….

The JD Code

For the longest time I’ve firmly believed that Jaded JD is a fourteen year old girl who’s really into Kylie Minogue. But now I’ve found that I’m wrong. Oh so horribly wrong.

You see, I’ve cracked the JD Code.

Closer to the Bible Code than the DaVinci Code (but not where near as sweet as Morse Code), the JD Code simply requires you to be a super genius and just know what to look for.

Let’s take JD’s post earlier this week where he opines upon Blogethical landmines. Sure, he may make some good points on ethics in blogging and disclosure and all that jazz. But if you go through the post and circle letters in a pattern that may appear random to more simpleminded individuals but is really a highly mathmetical process only attainable by folks like me, you will find JD’s TRUE identity!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the Virginia Blogosphere, Jaded JD is Bob Saget!

The JD Code also revealed that Bob at times will go by the names “Sue”, “Satan”, “Larry The Cable Guy” and all three of the Rice Crispy elves. He also predicts a cataclysmic event to befall the city of Lovington, Nebraska sometime between 2010 and 3243, but while Bob Saget might be loved and adored by millions for his work on Full House and America’s Funniest Home Videos, he’s not exactly known for his psychic abilities. Perhaps time will tell…

Thanks for joining us on this leg of the tour of the Virginia Blog Carnival. I’ve been your barker, Jason “Not Shaun” Kenney. If you or someone you love would like to host next week’s VBC, check this out for details. We now return you to your regularly scheduled non-sense.

CREDITS
(Listed In Order Of Appearance)

The Daily WhackJob
Cville Unity Rally Today

Richmond Democrat
Virginia Democrats unite in Charlottesville (photos)

CatHouse Chat
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Virginia Conservative
Mark Warner’s astrologer

I’m Not Emeril
My Thoughts On The Gay Marriage Amendment

Shaun Kenney
Make Your Own Planet

Waldo Jaquith
“Organic”: It’s not what you think.

Spark It Up!!!
What is Zogby Interactive?.

Spank That Donkey
Geo Strategy Lesson For Liberals.

Rick Sincere News and Thoughts
My Lunch with Dick Cheney

River City Rapids
47 Percent

Semi Truths
VA Bloggers Blog Carnival

and Bob Saget as Jaded JD
Blogethical Landmines

Armstrong Admits To Taking EPO?

French paper Le Monde continues to try and nail Lance Armstrong on doping:

Seven-times Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong has admitted he took banned drugs including erythropoietin (EPO) at the time he was being treated for cancer, the French daily Le Monde reported on Friday.

“According to new testimonies gathered from October 2005 to January 2006 by a court in Dallas, the seven-times Tour de France winner told a Indiana University Hospital doctor on October 28, 1996 he had taken performance-enhancing drugs,” Le Monde said.

Q&O on Kosola

Jon Henke has a great analysis of the Kosola mix-up:

I’m not particularly concerned about the recent Kos/Armstrong allegations, if only because (1) I fully expect the new wave of political power-players to engage in power-brokering, and (2) I’m not at all convinced that some of the activities are even remotely problematic. The Townhouse email group, for example, is not a “smoke-filled back room”. It’s an email group. Heck, I’ve set up one of those — called Blogosphere — and anybody is welcome to sign up, exchange links, make suggestions or otherwise exert your insidious influence to make the blogger-marionets dance.

That said, the apparent insistence on party and message discipline is worrisome. It indicates that the Progressive Movement has internalized the very flaws that so often characterized the Republican majority, and against which the Democrats have railed.

He also links to a Barack Obama diary at DailyKos that makes a great argument for the sake of the “progressive” movment as well.

Beating China's Censors

Maxthon: China’s hip browser

Maxthon, a browser made by a tiny Beijing company of the same name, has attracted millions of users in China for functionality that can funnel traffic through a Web proxy and circumvent government controls on information in search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Baidu.com and other popular sites or Internet service providers in that country.

…

According to Maxthon research, about 14 percent of the Chinese Web population has used the browser and 17 percent employs it for Web search.

…

Of course, Maxthon does not promote the proxy feature openly–it’s merely a shortcut that has spread virally among Chinese Web surfers. People who download the browser must be fairly technically savvy to activate it, but according to Jacobsson, various bulletin boards in Chinese instruct people how to do it.

Interesting development and great news for the people of China. But how long before Maxthon finds itself under some serious pressure from the CCP?

More on Kosola

Althouse picks apart Kos’s response to the New Republic article. Kos now seems to have declared war against The New Republic for simply reporting on a letter that Kos does admit to existing.

223pm UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein has more here. He also summarizes his previous day’s post:

In yesterday’s post on this story, I noted that what was being slowly revealed here—moreso, perhaps, than any evidence of wrongdoing on Kos’ part—was a progressivist mindset that is fanatical about controlling the narrative, and especially about defining the parameters of identitarian “authenticity”. Of course, little did I know at the time that Kos would be so eager to make my point for me.

Many bloggers feel that they are in a great position to dictate the news, whether it’s by determining what in the MSM deserves their attention or debunking or by starting the stories that the MSM are too “scared” or “biased” to touch. But when a story comes out of the MSM on one of their own they go into damage control.

How care the MSM try and change the way the blog works by targeting one or us or revealing some of the inner workings? The nerve…

255pm UPDATE: And it seems Mickey Kaus over at Slate has some thoughts as well. It’s traditional media bloggers versus the “progressive” bloggers.

World Cup: GO USA!

US has to win to have a shot to advance. And considering they haven’t scored a goal in the whole tourney yet…

1025am UPDATE: Ghana’s up 1:0 after a 22nd minute goal.

1030am UPDATE: 30 minutes in and Ghana’s got three shots to USA’s one. US, with the fewest goals of any team in the tourney, now needs TWO to win and have a chance to advance. Eesh.

1032am UPDATE: Italy’s up 1-nil over Czech in the 33rd minute of that game.

1035am UPDATE: Yay, we took a second shot! And Ghana’s fouling the crap outta USA, 12:5.

1044 am UPDATE: GGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!! 1-1 tie.

1045am UPDATE: USA’s first woal was the World Cup’s 100th this tourney. Whatever that’s worth.

1048am UPDATE: Goal for Ghana on a penalty kick, they’re now up 2-1.

1050am UPDATE: Half time, Ghana leads 2-1, leads shots 5-3, and fouls 14-7. USA has one more half to score two goals and keep Ghana out of the net. Italy’s still up 1-0.

1055am UPDATE: Seems US captain Reyna hurt his knee during the play where Ghana made their first goal.

1107am UPDATE: Game on.

1116am UPDATE: Ghana’s been holding US off. EVERY US sub is warming up on the sidelines.

1122am UPDATE: SIX Ghana fouls in the last three minutes. And Eddie Johnson is in for USA.

1128am UPDATE: Aw, damn, header off the post by USA in the 66th minute. So close…

1137am UPDATE: In the 74th minute USA has used all three subs.

1144am UPDATE: Italy’s up 2-0.

1157am UPDATE: TIME – US loses to Ghana, 2-1. That’s it for USA.

BAH. I anyone needs me I’m going to be outside tipping cars and setting fire to stuff.