I've bought the domain, Blake has set me up...now I just need to create a blog.
The new location will be http://www.librariansrant.com/ but it's not yet ready. With holidays and general madness, it will probably be 2 weeks. I'll let you know!
My brother's server, on which this blog is housed, has had a pear-shaped moment. The info, what could be retrieved, has been moved to another server, but I'm actively looking for a new home for the Rant. It will probably be on LISHost, once I've made the appropriate genuflections to Blake Carver More when I know it!
For now: Sock and Awe (throw shoes at Bush...just cuz)
Seems the very annoying Annoyed Librarian has struck again - and this time, has been "approved" by a scholarly journal, thus slapping us all in the face.
I must wonder if AL is laughing his/her self to death in his/her mother's basement? Clearly the publishers thought this was a "new voice" in the field, when in fact it may very well not be someone officially working in the field, but instead lobbing cow patties from outside it.
I’d love to hear what you think has caused such an alarming number of our fellow Americans to fall into the Sarah Swoon.
Could the willingness to crown one who seems to have no first language have anything to do with the oft-lamented fact that we seem to be alone among nations in having made the word “intellectual” an insult?
Oops, forgot to say. Ray (the boss man) sent me the story.
I assume many of you have seen Keith Olbermann's moving and intelligent response to the passing of Prop 8 in CA. It brought me to tears and reflected much of my own response to the entire marriage debate:
Not all University of Oxford researchers are uptight and humorless, "irregardless" of what you might think. In fact, a bunch of them compiled a list of the Top 10 Most Irritating Expressions in the English language -- just because we needed one.
...The great hierarchy of verbal fatigue includes:
1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It's a nightmare
8 - Shouldn't of
9 - 24/7
10 - It's not rocket science
As to #10, Curtis Rogers came up with a great new one he used at the Iowa Library Assn conference this year - "It's not rocket surgery." Think about it
THE knives are out for Sarah Palin after the Republican Party's devastating election loss.
New allegations were yesterday emerging about her campaign behaviour and out-of-control shopping sprees compared to "Wasilla hillbillies looting (department store) Neiman Marcus from coast to coast".
All sorts of people are saying that all the Palin dumping is just political. Well, yes, she decided to enter politics, so take your lumps! And those of us who were pointing this stuff out PRE-election were called "Democratic wonks" rather than citizens with the sense to see a barbie doll when confronted with one. Whatever. At least her dreams of a prez run in 2012 are unlikely to come to fruition. Thank heavens.
I voted on my way to the dentist yesterday. My polling place is the coolest in town - it's in someone's garage! Yep. That's right. We're the last remaining polling place in a residential plot. The couple (now just the widow) who live there have been providing voting space for over 20 years. We love it! Which is why I didn't early vote - I like to go see the ladies at the polling place and shoot the breeze. This time I didn't have a lot of time, cuz I was running late. Which is normally not a problem...but yesterday there were 5 people in front of me! This may not sound like much, but keep in mind my tiny precinct (mostly parkland) is like 400 registered voters TOTAL. When I doorknocked in my complex later in the day, my neighbor told me the total vote at 4pm was already over 200. Yay democracy!!! (well, okay, democratic republic, but you know what I mean)
I'm pretty sure the couple in front of me were Republicans (they live near me). Well, fine. At least they voted! Very encouraging.
My godson (I'm officially his fairy godmother) had the best bit yesterday. His mom sent me this:
This morning Peter was looking over a list of candidates while Jack and I were getting ready and he called out, "what does Lib. stand for?" And I yelled from the bedroom "libertarian" and I heard Peter say "Oh. Librarian! Yay!"
WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America.
.... Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."
The video from her piece about this, PLUS (and here's the value added) a very clear explanation of why touch screen DRE voting machines are still a huge hazard we have ignored for too long.
That same machine was decertified across the state of California in 2007 after it was determined to be fully insecure, easily hacked, and completely unverifiable. UC Santa Barbara's Computer Security Group analyzed that machine, on behalf of the state, and found that it could be hacked --- including its so-called "paper trails" --- such that even if those "paper trails" were 100% hand-counted (and they are almost never counted at all, in any case) the hack would likely never be revealed and the "paper trails" would match up perfectly with the hacked internal numbers.
I heard many tales of this in 2004 (that's four long years ago, folks) from friends in southern Ohio and elsewhere whose vote for Kerry was overridden by a vote for Bush by the machine - with no way to change it, despite multiple attempts.
Only an overwhelming majority of votes in an overwhelming majority of states is going to go unassailed - a close race will surely take this stuff to the courts. Again. And many smaller, closer races will certainly end up in court. With absolutely NO way to come up with a solution, as the software provides no certainty. They've made a fake paper trail - and thus potentially a fake election. This is not over.
Elizabeth Dole's people ran an ad questioning Kay Hagan's Christian faith, full of grainy images and voiceovers. Kay Hagan fought back with a great, straightforward ad, speaking directly to voters and calling Dole's bluff.
Could it be the Dems have finally figured out how to run a campaign with strength, grace and dignity?? We can only hope.
More when I know it!
