Speedlinking 9/1/06

Welcome to September.

~ Picture of the day comes from National Geographic: this is a supernova captured by the Hubble telescope.

And . . . they're off . . . .

We begin today with an environmental theme:

~ ENN reports that a Green Wave Surges onto Pop Culture's Shores. The article looks at the rise of environmental messages in England.

~ Another ENN story looks at the continuing mystery of tropical fish in Rhode Island waters. What global warming? There ain't no stinkin' global warming.

~ National Geographic offers a video of strange creatures living under the Antarctic ice.

Go beneath the surface and witness some of the world's oddest creatures: fish with "antifreeze" in their blood, giant-legged spiders, thousand-year-old sponges—perhaps even a new species.

~ Truthout has an article on the recent revelations of genetically modified plants having "escaped" their containment. Mostly, these events have been harmless, but most of us know what can happen when non-native species invade a new area. Many GM plants are designed to be hard to kill, so one mistake could be catastrophic.

~ The Nation asked some very smart people to think about how we might change our relationship to food. Wendell Barry is as direct as always, as is Eliot Coleman.

In other news . . . .

~ Mumon at Notes in Samsara posts a link to Keith Olbermann's recent commentary on the Donald Rumsfeld speech. This should be essential viewing for anyone who wants to live in a free and democratic America.

~ David Jon at Zaadz went to a Mankind meeting and left early. He raises some serious questions about these types of groups. In the comments, Siona also raises some good points about David Jon's response to what we experienced.

~ CJ Smith at Indistinctunion has a post on structuralism (in the philosophy sense), continuing his thoughts from a previous post. Matthew Dallman responds in the comments, and then posts a slightly longer response on his own site. Chris responds to MD later in the day with a counter-argument. This is largely a "doctrine" fight, but for geeks like me, it's a chance to learn and see two different sides of the issue.

~ Will at thinkBuddha writes on Life Without Free Will, a post inspired in part by his week at Sharpham. This is a really interesting post with some challenging thought experiments. Give it a read.

~ Steve Pavlina of Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog is launching a forum on his site for readers to discuss the articles he posts. Good idea -- and sure to be active. In this post he lays out the structure of the forum -- drop him a note if you have ideas.

~ Mike Jay has a new post on Domains, Noise & Effectiveness (Misjudging Leadership Ability) over at his blog. Mike is a brilliant man, so you might want to add him to your feeds (he doesn't post that often).

~ Joe Perez of Rising Up is coming back to blogging -- where and when is yet to be determined. He has been missed.

~ spiritofnow at where do you want to go, my heart? posts on the ban of certain blog hosts in Pakistan, and how Pakistanis get around that ban. A voice of freedom from our "free and democratic ally in the war on terror."

~ P2P Foundation posts some more del.icio.us links.

~ Over at the Ken Wilber blog, they have posted his forward to the new book by Carolyn Myss, Entering the Castle. Myss appears to be riffing on St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle. Wilber uses the forward to restate his vision of the Witness and then tries to relate his own stuff to Myss's book.

~ Harper's has a good article on the Bush administration's adoption of the "fascism" buzzword to make their "war on terror" somehow relevant to anyone but them. Just goes to show that Bush's people must be watching Fox News and scanning some of the conservative blogs. It also goes to show that they don't know what their new buzzword actually means.

~ Think Progress reports that Fox News is pushing a preemptive war with Iran. Because it worked so well in Iraq? This is cause for concern because Fox News gets it talking points from the GOP leadership each day. Not a good sign for those of us who think war with Iran is a rather stupid idea.

~ The UN has voted to create a Darfur peacekeeping force. Way too little too late. How many tens of thousands of people had to die before the UN acted? The force can't even be deployed unless the Sudan agrees -- don't see that happening. The lack of response by the UN, the EU, and the USA on the Darfur issue is criminal. But hey, there's no natural resources we want, so why should we care?

~ Finally, a little humor to begin your weekend. Here are the Top 100 Funny Pictures -- seems a lot of them feature Bush.

Tags: funny pictures, Darfur, preemptive war, Iran, fascism, Carlyn Myss, Ken Wilber, St. Teresa of Avila, Pakistan, Joe Perez, Mike Jay, Steve Pavlina, free will, structuralism, Mankind Project, Keith Olbermann, Donald Rumsfeld, Food, genetically modified plants, Antarctica, global warming, Green wave, supernova