photo from flickr.com

Wow, I’m glad we didn’t plant a bunch of seeds over the weekend.  They might have floated right out of the garden beds, and anything that germinated might die tonight.  I hope our little garlics survive this cold snap.

I’ve got a few long blog ideas I’m kicking around, but today I’ll fall back on some interesting links.  The first one is a funny bit from Matthew Warner about life without Facebook (although it applies equally well to Twitter, MySpace, and probably whatever it is my pool league teammates are doing with their phones all the time):

For instance, when I meet somebody outside of Facebook – it’s really awkward.

I mean. Are we friends? Are we not? There’s no clarity here.

Do they like my status? Do they have any comments about it? Do we have any friends in common? Can I speak my mind about Obama to this person without hurting their feelings?

John Derbyshire has a good article about Rush Limbaugh and right-wing talk radio, and how they may do as much harm as good in the long run.  There’s nothing wrong with some fun, low-brow attacks on the other side like “Obamination” (how many times did we hear the very offensive “Bushitler” in the last 8 years, after all), but a real political movement needs more than that.  The Left has its Michael Moores, but it doesn’t let guys like him get out in front and appear to be leading the pack.  They’re restricted to throwing bombs from the sidelines.  When Rush claims to be the voice of conservatism and the press sees his ratings as proof that he’s right, it’s easy to portray all conservatives as rabble-rousers with nothing serious to say.  The “crude cheerleading” gets good ratings; but it turns off, as Derb describes it, “that vast segment of the American middle class that lives sensibly — indeed, conservatively — wishes to be thought generous and good, finds everyday politics boring, and has a horror of strong opinions.”

Of course there’s the question of whether true conservatism is a political movement in the first place, and whether what’s called conservatism on the radio deserves the name.  But that’s another, much longer post…

I’m still gradually developing my “presence” on Twitter, but don’t really have any news about it yet.  I’ve tried out some new apps, but none have totally grabbed me.  PeopleBrowser’s web app for Twitter is nice, but it seems to miss some of the people I follow for some reason, and it only updates when that tab has the focus.  It’s pretty nice for being in alpha release, though, so it’s one to watch.  The release speed on some of these web apps is amazing.  Instead of months or years to roll out a web site, people are getting something useful in place in weeks or even days, and then developing it further based on how people use it.

Lastly:  ladies, if your husband is the kind of guy who has a strong opinion on Kirk vs. Picard, or just watches a lot of Star Trek, you might want to get this for his birthday (in your size, not his).  Warning: pictures there are rated PG.  (And we all know Sisko’s beard could whup Picard and Kirk both at the same time.)