Old Bird Inc is a rather unique project which aims to set up microphones all over the U.S. to monitor “night flight calls of migrating birds.”

“Old Bird is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation dedicated to facilitating acoustic monitoring of avian night flight calls. This organization has two primary branches of activity. One is the development and distribution of information and tools for advancing the method and utility of monitoring night flight calls of migrating birds. The second is the establishment and maintenance of networks of acoustic monitoring stations for gathering and distributing night flight call data for environmental education and understanding.”

Now, it has never occured to me that birds migrate at night, or that they would make calls while doing so.

Yup, this is just one amazing cool project. It’s well worth skimming through the website, especially the instructions how to make a microphone, and the software for recording and analyzing bird calls.

Is this a country on the edge of madness? A high-school student writes a story about zombies for English class and finds himself arrested for “Terroristic Threatening”

Read the story here.

Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole’s home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

“My story is based on fiction,” said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. “It’s a fake story. I made it up. I’ve been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies.”

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. “Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it’s a felony in the state of Kentucky,” said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

“What right did they have?” said Capt.Yossarian

“Catch-22.” said the old woman

“What?” Yossarian froze in his tracks with fear and alarm and felt his whole body begin to tingle. “What did you say?”

“Catch-22,” the old woman repeated, rocking her head up and down. “Catch-22. Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Capt. Yossarian shouted at her in bewildered, furious protest.

“Didn’t they show it to you?” Yossarian demanded, stamping about in anger and distress. “Didn’t you even make them read it?”

They don’t have to show us Catch-22,” the old woman answered. “The law says they don’t have to.”

“What law says they don’t have to?”

“Catch-22.” The old woman said.

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Why do you need to show a government issued identification card at a U.S. airport? Because there’s a law that says you have to.

Which law? A secret law!

John Gilmore, the millionare who cofounded the EFF, has been prohibited from travelling because he refused to show an ID while boarding an airplane.

Here’s his story. Be afraid, very afraid.

CBC’s Don Murray has a delicious and snarky report on George Bush’s Imperial tour of Europe. Here some excerpts but you really do want to read this one.

On security: “The procession containing the great, armour-plated limousine (flown in from Washington) rolled through streets denuded of human beings except for riot police. Whole areas of the Belgian capital were sealed off before the American president passed.

On the Audience: “Bush said he had come to Europe to listen. … (He) began his “listening” tour in Brussels with a speech in which Europeans listened to him. … They applauded politely.

American reporters were a little puzzled. The speech was full of lines that had members of Congress leaping to their feet just a few weeks earlier. Why the lack of enthusiasm? An American official explained that, well, Europeans were like that – careful, reserved when it came to political speeches. “

On European Leaders: “All 25 European leaders had showed up to be seen with Bush. But the president has a notoriously short attention span. There was no way that all 25 would be allowed to address him in their meeting. Only 10 would speak.

Behind the scenes the European leaders fought like debutantes at a society ball trying to fill their dance cards. The man presiding over this was the Luxembourg leader. His verdict: “If ridicule could kill, there would be bodies piling up in the streets of Brussels.” “

On Imperial Power: “The meeting of Europe and America only served to underline the power of America and its monarch. The greatest imperial monarch of the pre-industrial age articulated the goal of such encounters with Gallic precision 327 years ago. “S’agrandir,” wrote Louis XIV, “est la plus digne et la plus agréable occupation des souverains.” Self-aggrandizement is the most worthy and agreeable occupation of sovereigns. “

If you live in Ontario you may have received this bit of Bell Canada promotion in the mail. Click on the picture at the right to see the full image.

I generally think of myself as being pretty good at analyzing advertising and figuring out both the intended audience (seldom me) and the success at reaching them.

This one though has me thinking.

At first glance it seems obvious that they are appealing to parents of younger children, offering to filter ‘net access so that the kiddies don’t see dangerous or distasteful content.

You know, porn, bomb-making instructions, gratuitous violence… that sort of thing.

The problem is that the picture doesn’t show any of those things. It shows a grade seven or eight biology textbook. So who would this ad be aimed at?

Our friends do generally try to monitor the media that their kids consume, but they are more concerned with seeing that things are age appropriate. In other words, they would be less concerned with breasts, than the manner in which the breasts were presented.

Even my conservative relatives are bright enough to understand the difference between a biology lesson (at least a heterosexual one) and pornography. If anything they would probably encourage the former.

So is this ad aimed only at the far-right whackos who believe that keeping kids entirely in the dark will save them from ever discovering sex? The small minority of people who really truly do cut out the naughty bits (and references to evolution) from their children’s schoolbooks?

That seems to be a pretty narrow demographic.

No, I think that this ad had a much different intent. The elimination of the ovary picture (left) might suggest conservative “family values”, but unless I’m mistaken the other major organ that has been cut out is the poor woman’s stomach (right). Unless this is a commentary on the Internet and bulemia I can’t see any reason for that!

My guess is that this advertising insert is a joke. A joke on Bell who obviously didn’t pay attention to what the Agency was giving them. A joke on the fearful parents who think that a major corporation can take over their parenting responsibilities. A joke on the parents who don’t realize that their kids are smart and savvy enough to get around any parental block – Peacefire.org is a good starting point – or who will just go to their friend’s house where the ‘net is unfiltered.

Somewhere in some advertising agency is a designer who understands the absurdity of this whole idea, and who took a chance and demonstrated that a lot of parents, and lot of people at Bell, really have no idea about what the Internet is, or how their kids use it.

Can we protect kids from sex? Coincidentally the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mark Morford discussed just that topic today, and concludes, based on some serious research, that chastity just hasn’t caught on, and what’s more probably never will.

“Did you see this story? It’s the latest finding, the outcome of the most recent and quite thorough nonpartisan study, from Texas A&M no less, surveying teens in 29 Texas schools and all proving once again that these insidious and dangerous programs have absolutely zero effect on curbing teen sexual appetites and activity, and, if anything, actually induce teens to have more sex.”

PS. More great Biblical inspiration at The Brick Testament

Opinionated Lesbian has a link to a rather strange article titled “Dire Warnings Issued re: Canada’s Pending Anti-Marriage Bill“.

Among the warnings are:

“…if the homosexual movement succeeds in redefining marriage in his country, the destruction to society there will be unimaginable to most people… (and which) … opponents say, would render the legal definition of marriage “meaningless”"

…”There can be no restriction, in our opinion, because once you’ve [removed] the basic of a man and a woman — which is really the only form of relationship that is marriage — then it can become anything,” … polygamists are waiting in the wings, should the bill become law. … (they) will be in court probably within a month after the change of the law, if it happens.”

…”We are certainly not short of being run by a government that is every bit as bad as what old Russia used to be…”

Ok, so those juicy bits are out of context – go read the original.

The one thing that I’m still waiting for in this whole debate is some specific idea of exactly how same sex marriage will damage families or even society. Or even property values.

People have been getting married in Ontario for nigh on two years now, and I’m still waiting for even one example of a heterosexual family that has been torn asunder because of it.

I don’t know, maybe husbands and wives all over the province are jumping up and shouting “That’s it! I’ve decided to become gay! To hell with the children and the mortgage! I’m moving to Church Street!”

I doubt it though.

These words wrap up a wonderful tribute by William Rivers Pitt at truthout.org. Click ‘em…

From ESPN.com… you’ll want read it all, but here’s an excerpt. God I loved that man.

“It was 3:30 on a dark Tuesday morning when I heard the phone ring on his personal line in New Jersey. “Good thinking,” I said to myself as I fired up a thin Cohiba. “He’s bound to be wide awake and crackling at this time of day, or at least I can leave a very excited message.”

My eerie hunch was right. The crazy bugger picked up on the fourth ring, and I felt my heart racing. “Hot damn!” I thought. “This is how empires are built.” Late? I know not late.

Genius round the world stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.

Herman Melville said that in the winter of 1914, and Murray is keenly aware of it. Only a madman would call a legend of Bill Murray’s stature at 3:33 a.m. for no good reason at all. It would be a career-ending move, and also profoundly rude.

But my reason was better than good …

* * * * *

BILL: “Hello?”

HST: “Hi, Bill, it’s Hunter.”

BILL: “Hi, Hunter.”

HST: “Are you ready for a powerful idea? I want to ask you about golf in Japan. I understand they’re building vertical driving ranges on top of each other.”

BILL (sounding strangely alert): “Yes, they have them outdoors, under roofs …”

HST: “I’ve seen pictures. I thought they looked like bowling alleys stacked on top of each other.”

BILL: (Laughs.)

HST: “I’m working on a profoundly goofy story here. It’s wonderful. I’ve invented a new sport. It’s called Shotgun Golf. We will rule the world with this thing.”

BILL: “Mmhmm.”

HST: “I’ve called you for some consulting advice on how to launch it. We’ve actually already launched it. Last spring, the Sheriff and I played a game outside in the yard here. He had my Ping Beryllium 9-iron, and I had his shotgun, and about 100 yards away, we had a linoleum green and a flag set up. He was pitching toward the green. And I was standing about 10 feet away from him, with the alley-sweeper. And my objective was to blow his ball off course, like a clay pigeon.”

BILL: (Laughs.)

HST: “It didn’t work at first. The birdshot I was using was too small. But double-aught buck finally worked for sure. And it was fun.”

BILL: (Chuckles.)

HST: “OK, I didn’t want to wake you up, but I knew you’d want to be in on the ground floor of this thing.”"

Hunter S. Thompson is dead. Perhaps not surprisingly from a self inflicted gunshot wound.

I’m sure that many tributes will pour forth, but I’m going to keep it simple. A can of Ballatine’s Ale, and a re-reading of Hell’s Angels and the classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas : A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 is still fresh in my mind. I read it every four years as the Presidential Primaries heat up, and marvel at how little has changed.

Talk on one e-mail list this week turned to word processors. Despite the near total dominance of Microsoft Word I discovered that a lot of people who churn out words for a living still have a great loyalty to WordPerfect.

I count myself as a WP veteran, dating back to the classic version 5.1. Without even having it loaded on machine I can still see the blue screen, white letters, and the red flags on the status bar.

It’s worth noting that the latest WordPerfect v. 12 includes the option of running it in 5.1 mode. Not bad for an interface that dates to November 1989.

WordPerfect was the first program we installed on our brand new ’386. It ran fine with Windows 3.1 and 1 meg of RAM. By the time we finally moved to a WYSIWYG Windows word processor I knew that program inside and out. That of course was with the help of the undisputed bible, Karen Acerson’s Wordperfect 5.1: The Complete Reference. I still have that book on my shelf.

If you poke about on the ‘net there are still a lot of pages devoted to WordPerfect 5.1. This one should bring back lots of memories. Check out this page too.

Tee hee. Don’t you just love it when straight people try to be cool? Microsoft offers a helpful primer for parents trying understand what the heck their kids are typing into their IM windows and cel phones.

“While it has many nicknames, information-age slang is commonly referred to as leetspeek, or leet for short.”

“Non-alphanumeric characters may be combined to form letters. For example, using slashes to create “/\/” can substitute for the letter M, and two pipes combined with a hyphen to form “|-|” is often used in place of the letter H. Thus, the word “ham” could be written as “|-|4/\/\.”"

|-|4/\/\… yeah, right…… hey Microsoft – it’s spelled Pr0n, not pron!

Yes, another time waster for Friday. It’s TV advertising. Lots of TV advertising at AdvertisementAve.com. Actually there’s some pretty funny stuff here of you dig a little bit, including all of those Super Bowl ads that Canadians don’t get to see. Best of all, you get to rate what you watch. The current number one rated ad of all time is the classic Dr Pepper ad that you can see right here

Ooh! My favorite! “Osbournes and Osmonds“

If you’ve checked out the links at the right you might have visited MagneticSpirits.com. That site is run by my partner of twenty years Victoria Fenner. As well as being a sound artist and curator, she has a regular e-mail newsletter of the same name. Here’s an excerpt from this week’s missive.

“Oh, grow up” is a command just about every one of us has heard at some point in our lives.

The idea that our development is a lifetime ascent up some ladder leading to some kind of perfect heaven pervades our society. It causes children to become adults before their time. It causes adults to be always and eternally “practical”, rejecting anything that doesn’t conform to society’s notion of what we “should” be and what we “should” do.

Like most of the world, I have (mostly) assumed that growing up is a good thing. And I agree that in some ways, it’s necessary. Growing up means taking care of ourselves. And taking responsibility for our actions. Although this is where it gets sticky – when I’ve been told to “grow up”, it’s usually by a person who has a different definition of what “taking responsibility” is than I do. And what growing up is all about.

But overall, I’m starting to think that the whole idea of “growing up” is highly overrated. I found a concept a couple of weeks ago that presented the notion that instead of growing up, it might serve us better to grow DOWN. (more…)

The things that I find on e-mail…… one of the occasional delights in my week is a little e-mail list called “Desi Masala”. It was presented to me as a joke list from India, but really it’s much, much more than that.

The jokes range from the insanely clever to the downright crude to some that defy categorization. Here’s a recent example:

How To Kill a Lion

Newton’s Method:
Let, the lion catch you. For every action there is equal and opposite reaction. Implies you caught lion

Einstein Method:
Run in the direction opposite to that of the lion. Due to higher relative velocity, the lion will also run faster and will get tired soon. Now you can trap it easily.

Software Engineer Method:
Catch a cat and claim that your testing has proven that its a Lion. If anyone comes back with issues tell that you will upgrade it to Lion.

Pakistani Police Method:
Catch any animal and interrogate it & torture it to accept that its a Lion. Now lets kill the lion…

Shahbaz Sharif’s Method :
Keep warning the lion that u may come and attack anytime. The lion will live in fear and die soon in fear itself.

Meera’s Method :
Remove the make-up and put it over lion. The lion will die notwithstanding that heavy weight.

Police Muqabla Method:
Send Police around 2AM and kill it, while it’s sleeping !

Star Plus Method:
Send a lioness into the forest. our lion and lioness fall in love with each other. Send another lioness in to the forest,followed by another lion. First lion loves the first lioness and the second lion loves the 2nd lioness But 2nd lioness loves both lions. Now send another lioness(third) into the forest. You don’t understand right… ok….read it after 15 yrs, then also u wont !

Yash Chopra (Indian Film Director’s) method:
Take the lion to Australia or US.. and kill it in a good scenic location.

Govinda method:
Continuously dance before the lion for 5 or 6 days.

Menaka Gandhi method:
Save ! the lion from a danger and feed him with some vegetables continuously.

George Bush Junior’s method:
Link the lion with osama bin laden and shoot him!!!

Ravi Shastri method:
Ask the lion to bowl at u. U bat for 200 balls and score 1 run.

Other times there will be a run on love poems and odes to someone’s mother or wife. About one third of the posts are in languages other than English, but no-one seems to care.

Sometimes things head into the political realm, like this joke that I suspect most people will find familiar:

(more…)

Cynical about Valentines Day? The folks at Better Living Centre have just what you’re looking for.

In Cupidwatch 2005 and the succeeding Cupidwatch 2005 [#2] and Cupidwatch 2005 [#3] they offer up a spirited examination of all of the ideas and products that generate Press Releases this time of year.

Whether your day includes pizza, a Harlequin Romance, or K-Y you’ll find a flack telling you how their product can enhance your life.