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December 15, 2003
Blog Roundup
Here we go with a full version of the blog roundup. I have spent most of the weekend doing family / Christmas type things and that has not left a lot of time for blogging and this is sort of running late (but it is still Sunday in America).
I want to start with an article which I read early in the week over at 'USS Clueless' which is a always a great read. I just wish the RSS feed had a brief summary of the article because sometimes the title is not enough to grab my interest (I avoid reading most of the American political stuff because I don't understand the players well enough to participate). Anyway, in this post Steven Den Beste outlines the reasons why China won't (or can't) invade Taiwan. It is a well thought out article but a number of my Asian friends feel that he is overstating the case regarding the preservation of Taiwan's industry. They are convinced that if the Chinese leadership feel that they have lost too much "face" then they would happily nuke Taiwan and destroy the lot.
I have been looking and looking and I have no idea where Tram Townthis link comes from. Maybe it is a referral site or it is a comment that I have overlooked. Nevertheless it is worth checking out - it has short pointers to news items, most of which have some Australian theme. Examples include posts on the senate and the (not-very) United Nations). In the process of checking the site out, I found this reference to this story which contains an interesting quote:
A strange sidenote is that many Asian passengers feel thatdeletedstaff are racist in their treatment of Asian passengers. A common theme among many flight reports is that they seemed to be unfriendly towards them. I've got news for you guys:
They aren't racist, they treat everyone like shit.
This rings a real bell because often I have had to convince my Asian friends (and relatives) that someone else is not necessarily racist - they treat everybody equally badly.
Da Goddess has an elephant story worth reading - apparently the elephants are hijacking trucks! Also on the animal theme there is a post on red-legged frogs (and no that is not a reference to the French). On a more serious note there is a well written book review that will save me some reading time.... By the way, is it just me, I only noticed the 'favicon' for Da Goddess this morning. I am not sure if that icon is work-safe :-)
For all the would-be-lawyers out there Annika's Journal and Poetry, has some hints on how to pass the LSAT (which apparently stands for Law School Admission Test). There is also an interesting comment on the negative reaction in the American media following the arrest of Hussein.
Interested Participant always seems to pick up those little stories that everyone else misses like the protest by illegal aliens not being allowed to get a drivers licence. Bugger. I figured next time I was in the US, I would just get a new form of identity by getting an 'illegal alien driver licence' - presumably allows you to get parking tickets on your flying saucer. [Ed: Yes I know the Americans mean immigrant - I wonder if the Australian population would be happier if the illegal immigrants were called aliens instead?] I think the funniest (but serious) post would have to be this entry on the European constitution where the comment reads:
Another salient issue discussed in the post is a major difference that exists between the United States and France. That is, France has their own major media house organ and anything that is printed by Agence France-Presse should be considered a product of the French government. The US doesn't have such an entity. In fact, the content of theNYT, WaPo, and others sometimes looks like it's also been approved for publication by the French government.
My favourite post over at PD: You ... relax would have to The Rules of Manhood. This is another classic in the same vein as the one about the urinal rules. Prasad also joins in the arranged marriage discussion which has been floating around the Indian blogsphere. The whole blog has had a refit recently and I like the new style it is clean and clear. The category buttons are a great idea as well (maybe I should try that).
According to the main page, Ghost of a Flea is either a 'Fighting Quaker' or Sam Eagle. I think you have to guess which? There are some links to major entertainment stories like Barbie does the Hilton and Kylie Pigs Out.
Tiger: Raggin' and Rantin' is one of the three new blogs added to the blogroll in the last couple of weeks (and yes I am still working on the 'sort by newness' option). [Ed: One of the others also fluked a shot in this weeks roundup and the third is Firebrand's Desiderata]. Tiger (I keep saying 'tigger' as in Winnie-the-Pooh to myself) has a really interesting slant on things. For a starter, his blog claims to be a 'Pickled Pig's Foot' in the Blog Ecosystem - this is apparently a special category for a special blog. He also has these lovely quotes from other bloggers over on the right column like: "complete sentences and excellent grasp of punctuation", "approved by 7 out of 10 alien species", "He Rags, He Rants, he's full of shit.", "this blog sucks". The last comment was from 'Blog Review' and based on other recent references to it (check out Norbizness) I think that is probably a sterling recommendation. Anyway, Tiger is apparently planning to give up smoking and would appreciate some encouragement (after Jan 1). There is also some observation about weekend downtime in the blogging world. What strikes me as funny is that Monday is a quiet day in the blogsphere - then I remind myself that America is still a day behind :-)
The other newcomer to strike it lucky is GRRR Be Afraid a blog run by 'TL'. Last time TL got a mention, I correctly guessed that she was female (just look at the site and you can tell) and she kindly followed up with answers to all the questions I raised. Right now I am guessing that it is either exam time or holiday time because the last post was December 9th. There is also a post on history perspectives.
Last on the (random) list this week is Reflections in D minor (Lynn) and I noticed that her URL has changed (that link still works but this is the new link). Lynn had an interesting comment this week on this post which I think illustrates the point clearly. Most men I know see a problem as something that needs a solution whereas most women appear to be able to accept that some problems don't need (or don't have) a solution. Over on her blog Lynn has a beautiful picture of snow on leaves which I plan on keeping around to look at when the temperature hits 40 (Celsius) in the shade. Also of interest is a musical biography. I might try that some day.
I had to change the program this week because I noticed it was amalgamating sites that use the year in archive posts without the "archive" tag. This will not have affected the random choices (as they would happen regardless) but it does affect the 'Top 10 Sites' lists. After the fix, I re-ran the script and replaced the top 10 segment from the original list. This promoted 'Technically Speaking' to 5th place and displaced Cynical Cyn (17). Note that when the number of links are the same (e.g. 'Cynical Cyn' and 'When I Paint My Masterpiece') the ordering is random. I have been wondering if I should change this to reflect all the blogs greater than some threshold (say 10 links) instead).
Site Checklist
==============
Note: There are 711 links to consider.
TOP 10 Sites
============
Jivha - the Tongue (38)
All AgitProp (29)
Kingsley (28)
Interested Participant (25)
Technically Speaking (23)
The Gray Monk (20)
Dusting My Brain (19)
Utterly Boring (18)
Jay Solo's Verbosity (18)
When I Paint My Masterpiece (17)
Random 10 Sites
===============
http://tramtown.blogspot.com (2)
Da Goddess (7)
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/12/InvasionofTaiwan.shtml (1)
http://www.aeternam626.com/weblog (8)
Annika's Journal and Poetry (4)
http://www.phatfrogg.blogspot.com (13)
Interested Participant (25)
http://prasad.typepad.com/pd (4)
http://www.ghostofaflea.com (1)
http://tiglaw.com/blog (10)
Posted by Ozguru at December 15, 2003 12:12 PM
Comments
Posted by: Prasad at December 15, 2003 12:12 PM
Posted by: Interested-Participant at December 15, 2003 12:12 PM
Posted by: Da Goddess at December 15, 2003 12:12 PM
Posted by: ozguru at December 15, 2003 12:12 PM
Posted by: Tiger: Raggin' & Rantin' at December 15, 2003 12:12 PM
Posted by: Da Goddess at December 15, 2003 12:12 PM
Posted by: PD at December 15, 2003 12:12 PM
