Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Running late to get out to HCB rehearsal, but I think I'm finally feeling together enough to drive out there. In the meantime, here's what I accomplished today -- my latest batch of link sausage:

• Biological Weapons Found! ... in Maryland (The Guardian, 28 May) Not all that big a story except for the ironies regarding its timing relative to the whole business in Iraq. "Even more embarrassing for the Pentagon, there was no documentation about the various biological agents disposed of at the US bio-defence centre at Fort Detrick. Iraq's failure to come up with paperwork proving the destruction of its biological arsenal was portrayed by the US as evidence of deception in the run-up to the war."
• A survey on Health and Aging Issues in the BD/SM Scene: "The following survey is being conducted in order to aid presenters in the formulation of relevant and necessary workshops on the issues facing all of us as we grow older in the Leather scene. This survey is NOT intended to be a clinical study nor is it intended for use by health care professionals." It took me about twenty minutes to fill out.
• The Infra-Red Zoo Gallery (thanks to perspicuity for the link): "By viewing animals with a thermal infrared camera, we can actually 'see' the differences between warm and cold-blooded animals. Infrared also allows us to study how well feathers, fur and blubber insulate animals." (Note that the infrared photography I've done has all been reflected infrared, in very short wavelengths quite close to red (950nm). This is longer-wavelength thermal infrared. What I do is somewhat biologically interesting too, but nowhere near as dramatic, and more relevant to plants than to animals. Then again, I don't need a refrigerated camera...)
• A New York Times article defending the right to be grumpy and/or curmudgeonly, in the face of a pro-cheerfullness "Grump Out" by a group called "Smile Mania". It refers to Andy Rooney as America's "curmudgeon in chief": "The only way to correct what's wrong is to talk about it," Mr. Rooney said. "A restaurant needs complaints or it's never going to fix what's not going right." Some of the followup comments are good too ... "Anyone who hands me a fucking banana and tells me to cheer up is gonna show up at their proctologist's office later with an interesting story." Is it ironic that the article and discussion made me smile?
• Y'know that big to-do about the SCO lawsuit claiming that Linux infringes on copyrights to System V source code, on which, allegedly, all modern Unices (and Linux) are based? Well, according to this article in Infoworld, "Novell on Wednesday said it never transferred the copyrights and patents of Unix System V when it sold the software to SCO in 1995." SCO does have an answer for that, but I suspect the challenge that Eric Raymond told me about at Balticon will stop this nonsense even if the letter from Novell doesn't.
• vvalkyri echoed the link to the story about the PATRIOT Act raid in her journal, and in response, cos posted this list of links to related stories about the erosion of liberties recently. Some of these are links I've posted before (but if you've just started reading my journal in the past month or so, you probably didn't see them). Others were new to me. Scary and infuriating stuff. And unless enough people get scared and angry enough to do something about it, it'll only get worse.
• Somebody please tell me this is just anti-US propoganda made up out of whole cloth: US plans death camp in Guantanamo (Pakistan Daily Times, citing The Mail On Sunday) "The US has floated plans to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, with its own death row and execution chamber. [...] the move is seen as logical by the US, which has been attacked worldwide for breaching the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war since it established the camp at a naval base to hold alleged terrorists from Afghanistan.
• Fred pointed out that if you search Google for "search engine", Google itself is third on the list of results. (Dunno how long this'll stay true, but if somebody wants to put a screen-capture up someplace...)
• A sort-of anti-Barbie, Feral Cheryl: "Feral Cheryl is modelled on the green extremists, known as 'ferals' from Australia." "This 34 cm vinyl doll runs barefoot, dreadlocks her hair with coloured braids and beads, wears simple rainbow clothes, has piercings and a range of tattoos, and even a bit of natural body hair. Her motto is 'Live Simply, Run Wild'. Her only accessories: a bag of home grown herbs [a small stash of dried basil], a sense of humour and a social conscience."
• And just to round this batch out to an even number of items, here's a a cute novelty model rocket