Librarian's Rant

From CNN.com:

"Reuters: Italian media reporting Pope John Paul II has died. CNN working to confirm."

They then pulled this off their website. April Fools or bad reporting?? With CNN, could be either. I'll have to call my friend at Reuters and see...

BOOK NEWS: Winfrey Launches Online Bookseller Oprazon.com

and they couldn't resist a little 'dig' at NextGens: Call for information: LJ Seeks Next Generation Librarian of the Year

and finally...the Blog People did in Michael Gorman!

Michael Gorman, president-elect of the American Library Association (ALA), has stepped down just months before assuming office. “It was the blog people, they did it,� said RLG’s Walt Crawford, a friend and co-author (Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality; ALA, 1995). “They made Mike’s life a living hell,� Crawford said in reference to the outcry following the publication of Gorman’s essay “The Revenge of the Blog People.�

Todd G. sent me this: Pat Buchanan Doused With Salad Dressing

Commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan cut short an appearance after an opponent of his conservative views doused him with salad dressing.

"Stop the bigotry!" the demonstrator shouted as he hurled the liquid Thursday night during the program at Western Michigan University. The incident came just two days after another noted conservative, William Kristol, was struck by a pie during an appearance at a college in Indiana.

After he was hit, Buchanan cut short his question-and-answer session with the audience, saying, "Thank you all for coming, but I'm going to have to get my hair washed."

Oh, for pete's sake! THIS is the level of political dialogue on our nation's campuses? Get a grip, kiddies! And a clue. You only help them when you lash out like this.

And besides, it's a waste of a perfectly good pie.

I love April Fools' Day on the Web. Google tends to lead the pack with their clever hoaxes. Some examples:

Google Gulp
http://www.google.com/googlegulp/

Google has also taken leaps ahead in their email storage capacity:
Gmail Infinity+1
http://gmail.google.com/gmail

A Google approach to math.
On the eve of Gmail's one-year birthday, our engineers were toiling away furiously. Notes scribbled all over the walls. Complex calculations on napkins and empty pizza boxes. Millions of M&Ms.

The result?... starting today, we're beginning the roll-out of our new and top secret Infinity+1 storage plan.

In addition, Bloglines has decided to innovate for the galactic masses:

Bloglines in Klingon
http://www.bloglines.com/about/news#81

Bloglines, the world's most popular free online service for searching, subscribing, publishing and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content, today opened the doors of its service to audiences beyond our solar system with a new translation in Klingon, the galaxy's fastest-spreading invented language.

"The custom of sharing grand stories of conquest and battle has a long standing history among the Klingon people," said Mark Fletcher, founder of Bloglines. "Blogging is simply an easy way to continue the tradition while stuck in deep space, away from your family. We feel that presenting Bloglines in the Warrior Tongue was long overdue."

Snopes has a Roundup of some great examples of today's hoaxes.

I can take no credit for the mining--these come from Akeisha, the link mistress