There’s A Reason Why It’s Called FACEbook

I work for a company that has all the advantages of technology. There are more mega computers, laser printers, cutting edge software applications, handy hardware accessories, and whizbang gadgets….than you can shake a light pen at.

So yes, I’m more than familiar with the latest cool programs and hip tools to use- Skype, IPhones, IPods, IMs, Tweeters, MySpaces, DVB, Wireless this….3D that….the list is endless. And then there’s…

Facebook.

And apparently, I don’t get it. Yes, I have a Facebook PROFILE. People have added me to theirs and I’ve added them to mine. All in the name of formal and informal ‘networking’ and ‘friendship’ and ‘kinship’. No big deal. Yes my friends, there are lots and lots of pictures of FACES in Facebook.

But evidently, people aren’t content with networking using their ‘faces’. Sure enough, there are people who would rather put anything BUT their faces on Facebook.

On Dec. 27, some 11,000 protesters held a virtual nurse-in by uploading breast-feeding photos onto their Facebook profiles, and 20 or so women showed up at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., to breast-feed there. By Dec. 30, more than 85,000 members had joined a Facebook group called “Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!”

Ahem…um….look ladies- I’m ALL FOR breasts- I am. In fact, trust me, I’m quite fond of them.

The group, founded by San Diego mom Kelli Roman, urges Facebook to change its obscenity policy. “We expect you to realize that nursing moms everywhere have a right to show pictures of their babies eating, just like bottle-fed babies have a right to be seen,” their petition reads. “In an effort to appease the closed-minded, you are only serving to be detrimental to babies, women, and society.”

But there’s a time and place for everything. Exactly…WHAT is the big deal? There are countless places to show your breasts other than Facebook…if you feel so inclined. In fact, you can build a Blog or a Website and upload an endless stream of photos showing your breasts online if you want. Not good enough? Then shotgun a hyperlink or imbed a picture vis-a-vis an email to thousands of friends- so that they too- can enjoy seeing you breastfeeding your baby.

Heck…SEND ME A PHOTO. I’ll be glad to give you my email address. But for goodness sake, give Facebook a break.

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Joe Cool

I mean…Cuil!

A brand new bouncing baby Search Engine was born yesterday. Yes. To 3 former Google employees now living in Menlo Park, California.

This isn’t just any David and Goliath story, however — the Menlo Park, Calif., startup is led in part by three former Google employees who claim theirs is a richer, more efficient experience.

Cuil (pronounced “cool”) Inc. says it is “pioneering a new approach to search,” one that begins with indexing 120 billion Web pages — three times more than Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, according to Cuil (though Google still claims to have the most comprehensive index of any search engine). It entails a completely different method of organization, relying on an analysis of the Web site’s content to determine its relevance.

This is in contrast to Google’s method, which ranks results based on analyzing links and traffic to a given site (something Cuil’s Web site refers to as “superficial popularity metrics”).

Superficial popularity metrics?

Nice SMACKDOWN! I’ve already loaded them onto my favorites list. The site looks- very cuil.

Cross Action News. What Drudge Would Be if Drudge Was an Evangelical

Having recovered from a major interview on Moody Broadcasting this morning, Cross Action News is up and running.  This is a must-read site, covering news from a conservative and Christian point of view.  Stuff here I haven’t seen, including this from FrontPage:

Well, NASA says recent satellite images show that the allegedly endangered polar ice cap – which will melt completely one of these summers and kill off all the polar bears if we don’t slash our greedy carbon footprints and revert to the lifestyles of medieval peasants – has recovered to near normal coverage levels.

That’s what Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, told Canada’s CBC News – the Canadian government’s version of NPR/PBS – on Feb. 12.

As far as Google’s search engine knows, Comiso’s comforting report has appeared nowhere but in Canada.

There’s even better news for polar ice-pack lovers from ice expert Gilles Langis, who says Arctic ice is now even thicker than usual in spots. A senior ice forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, he’s another scientist you shouldn’t expect to see talking to Anderson Cooper on the next episode of CNN’s “Galaxy in Peril.”

Meanwhile, in other news too climatically incorrect for U.S. mainstream media to touch, California meteorologist Anthony Watts says January 2008 was the planet’s second-coldest January in 15 years.

Even more shocking, the average temperature of Earth dropped significantly from January 2007 to January 2008. As Watts explains on his Web site wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com, he determined the lower figure by crunching data from four major public and private global tracking sources.

Very much worth visiting, and linking to, and maybe even using as one of your home links, as I have done. Good job, Jason and company!

Let’s Get Rich Quick on the Internet…Not.

If you’ve ever had a period of time away from work due to unemployment or disability, you find yourself drawn to the hundreds of “get rich quick” schemes on the internet.  If you listen to radio, especially talk radio, on your commute home you hear the same ads for ways to get rich, to get out of debt, to earn a “2nd” income..yada…yada…yada. That doesn’t even count the spam sites. Should you want a list of those, Matt, Craig and I would be happy to stop our comment filter for a day.   Denitsa over at After the Pink Goat has a good look at all the different scams, and what they are really selling.
Personal confession: (you can skip this should you have a sudden desire to roll your eyes.)

A few years back, I had a dream that I could make some money with LJiC. Matt and I even discussed it, back in the days when we first teamed up.  LJiC kept me occupied while I was recovering from a major illness. The total made on LJiC according to my PayPal account is exactly $21.32.  That dates back over 3 years now. It’s based on two, count ’em, two blog ads, one of which was for some movie that must have had money to burn, the other for a new book I can’t remember. For those of you keeping score, that ain’t getting rich.

LJiC will never make money.  And no internet money maker will make me any money either. But I still come back to LJiC to post interesting articles I find, and just to state my opinion. I think that’s enough.

Censoring the Comcast Way

Assuming this post isn’t blocked by my ISP, I’m hoping LJiCers are as disturbed by Comcast blocking Internet traffic as I am. I don’t mind Comcast blocking some file sharing programs. I just want to be told that your doing it.

I’ve used BitTorrent at times. And, because I have Comcast, I’ve wondered why BitTorrent was so slow. Now I know. Wish I had known before. At least then I could have worked around it to get my illegal software. 🙂 Just joking. Really….I’ll be right back. I hear a knock at the door…Wha? No! It was a joke! Stop that! Don’t erase my hard dri…

To Pluck From the Memory a Rooted Sorrow…

I’ve been away from the blogging world too long. Yet what I’ve been doing while away has been deeply rewarding, dangerous at times, and much needed in our world. Perhaps Shakespeare said it best:

Macbeth. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doctor. Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.

I’ve taken a job as a Social Worker, Therapist, what-have-you, on a locked psychiatric unit. After four months, I can honestly say I’ve found my calling, again. It’s about time.

I work at a hospital on the near west side of Chicago. Not quite inner city, but not quite suburban either, my unit treats everything. We have the homeless, chronically mentally ill. We also have the housewife with her first bout of depression. We have the Freshman in college who just had his first psychotic break of schizophrenia. English, spanish, polish, hindi, urdu, and every language in between. And with each one, plucking the rooted sorrow is the goal.

A therapist can only point out the roots; it is up to each of us to tend our own gardens. The sorrows of my unit are the sorrows of all of us. I’ve learned over the years that there is but a small distance between my side of the keys and my patients’. It is the knowledge of my own rooted sorrow that allows me to work with the deep roots within others. In the end, as the quote says, the patient must minister to himself. After almost 20 years as a therapist, I once again find that Shakespeare had the answers all along.

Finally, Some Competition for Google

I’m currently reading The Search, by John Batelle. (You can find it at Liberty Recommends in the right sidebar.) It’s not just a history of the rise of Google and other search engines, but a look at how internet Searching has changed our culture over the past ten years. Great book so far, but reading a book on the history of the internet is like reading ancient history. It’s filled with outdated words like GoTo, WebCrawler, and even Gopher. Yet, I used all of those at one time or another. After all, it was only ten to 15 years ago.

One of the key figures in the history of Search is Bill Gross, founder of GoTo/Overture, IdeaLabs, Magellan and a dozen other startups. His current startup is Snap.com. Having tried it for just a few minutes, I’m already hooked. It’s now a part of my home tabs in Firefox. The snap News feature is far superior to GoogleNews, and the WebSearch feature seems to bring back far more relevant links than Google, at least so far. Check it out for yourself, and let me know what you think.

My Blogiversary

Wow, it’s been a whole year already. I almost forgot, it has been a very busy day for me. SO much has happened this year, all of it begging for my time. I started with Birth of a Neocon as Zaphriel and moved on through several evolutions since then. All of it is now transferred here to Liberty Just In Case, because Mark was generous enough to allow me to muscle into his little corner of the web. I have to thank Mark profusely, because without him, I would have never made it to my one year point.

So thanks to everyone, who has read my work, and encouraged me along the way, and in a weird way, I would like to thank my adversaries and trolls, for they gave me plenty of fodder.

OK, Blogiversary over, now back to the show.

Z.

Go Vote for Bring It On!

One of LJiC’s favorite bloggers, Jet, is nominated for The Koufax Award, a real honor for leftie blogs. If you are Conservative, keep repeating the phrase “It’s only a blog, it’s only a blog, it’s only a blog” as you cast your vote for Jet and Bring It On. She’s neck and neck with The Daily Kos, a HUGE leftie blog. Good Luck, Jet!

Wal-Mart in My E-Mail

Actually, Wal-Mart has never contacted me or Matt. Guess I haven’t put up a post about Wal-Mart in awhile. But, according to this story from The New York Times, reported in their usual snide, arrogant style, Wal-Mart is making a concerted effort to get their message out, and are bypassing the MSM to do it. I’m thinking that’s what really griped The Old Grey Lady’s cookies. How dare Wal-Mart go around them to get their message out?!? Not that the Times would actually print anything positive about Wal-Mart. That would be politically incorrect, wouldn’t it?

As Liberty Just in Case has grown, so has the number of bloggers looking for me to put up a link to their posts. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Depends on rather the post fits the news that day, rather I like it or not, and sometimes on rather I have the time. I get an email from Centcom about twice a week, and an occasional tip from a Lt. in Centcom’s public relations department. If I post his stuff, I put any direct quotes in blockquotes.

Most of the time, I tell where I get stuff. Sometimes, I don’t. The last book I plugged, Prayers for the Assassin, I got directly from the publisher as a preproduction copy. So happened I liked the book. If I hadn’t, I would have said so here on LJiC. I think folks know that.

The last thing bloggers need is to get as snide and pretentious as The New York Times. If you’re reading this, the chances are you also have a blog. You may shell out some money for a dot com, or you may use Blogger. You are probably like me, sitting in your basement, or your bedroom, or a bedroom you’ve turned in to a study, and working on the computer you still owe money on, in your house that you also owe money on. You don’t go to fancy parties with “media elite” and you don’t get thousands of hits a day. You’re happy if you get a hundred hits a day, or maybe even a week. And it makes your day when someone leaves a nice comment, or puts you on their blogroll. You may have a few folks who read what you write regularly, and you likely return the favor.

And (now hear me on this) that’s okay. In fact, that’s great! You’ve got a voice, and you use it. When bloggers forget where they are (in their basement, in their jammies, with a glass of wine at two in the morning typing on their 2-5 year old computer), and begin to think they are “journalists” they begin (as they say in Oklahoma) to “put on airs.” When you begin to think that you are more than just a person with a blog, you stop being a blogger. And you lose something essential in your writing…humility.

That’s when you suddenly find yourself with a site called “OpenSource Media.” Fortunately, smaller heads prevailed, and changed the name to Pajamas Media. A much less pretentious, and more accurate name for a bunch of bloggers getting together.

So, if you get an email from Wal-Mart, saying you’ve been noticed, say “Yippee!” grab another glass of Corbett Canyon Chardonnay (ummm, not a sponsor of LJiC. I just like the stuff), and read the email. If you like what it says, post it, saying where you got it. If you don’t, go on to something else. That’s what bloggers do. In their cold basements. In their jammies. At two in the morning. Be sure to turn off the space heater before you go up to bed, okay?