CNN’s “Game Over” column reviews the new Xbox.

Meanwhile, the American Heart Association suggests that Drinking decaffeinated coffee may be harmful to heart health.

Decaffeinated — not caffeinated — coffee may cause an increase in harmful LDL cholesterol by increasing a specific type of blood fat linked to the metabolic syndrome, hints a new study presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2005.

(both via slashdot.org)

All together now: awwww. (from apostropher, my source and yours for all things cute and spikey.)

Can you say ‘recusal‘? Apparently John Roberts can’t. . . .

“On Monday, September 12th, between the hours of 5:00pm and 7:00pm, bar customers across the nation will raise their glasses for a “Save New Orleans Cocktail Hour” as bar and restaurant owners shake up New Orleans’ classic cocktails to directly benefit New Orleans food and beverage industry workers who are out of work and sorely in need of funds for rebuilding their lives.” (via a later date)

Cal economics prof Brad DeLong suggests that maybe future presidential candidates should actually have some skill in public administration.

That story about FEMA director Mike Brown having been fired from his last job, as head of judging for the International Arabian Horse Association? The Boston Herald has details.

Penn State literature and cultural studies prof Michael Bérubé renames a few key players in the ‘recovery’.

The Rude Pundit takes A God’s Eye View of Recent Events: “[T]he hurricane and its vengeful aftermath are not God’s penance on New Orleans and Biloxi for the sins of sex and gambling. For God is far wiser than that. No, Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of wrecking the Republican agenda.” (The link on ‘agenda’ in the original post, while very pretty, crashed Opera. Twice. Beware.)

Google Maps has posted satellite pictures taken Wednesday morning over New Orleans. Here’s the Superdome.

over at Common Monkeyflower, U-M urban planning student Murph has some interesting ruminations on the rebuilding of New Orleans—whether it should be done at all, f’rinstance. Sensible coastal policies as the 21st century version of building codes?; Abandoning NOLA, revised; The suburbia of rebuilding.

Language Log’s Mark Liberman, on whether Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is pulling a Clinton.

In the Guardian this month, Nick Hornsby visits a group of men who’ve recently read his book A Long Way Down to discuss it with them; they’ve recently won the Penguin/Orange Reading Group Award. He discovers that [t]he High Down prison reading group is in many ways like any reading group, except with worse teeth.

Believe it or not, webrings are still around. Here’s a fun-looking one, the Alt.Librarians WebRing. . . .

LIKE the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. “We will stay the course,” he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?

—Frank Rich rocks. (NYT)

Work has been so boring the last three days, I’ve done almost nothing but read Goats. I’ve now made it through three years of the archives—only five and a half years left to catch up. . . .

Don’t miss the Litany of Beer.

I did, in fact, make it home yesterday. Now I’m at work, and something’s making the machines cranky—everything is slow as hell. Maybe it has to do with the system update they’re doing this weekend—the staff servers are all offline this weekend, and we’re doing all the circulation off line, storing it in files on the machines till the servers come back up on Monday. . . .

Thank god I (probably) won’t be here if they ever decide to do this again. . . .

For just $1,025, you can own the pierogi with Jesus’ face fried into the side. (via apostropher)

I meer for beer!

Happy 72d birthday, Jerry Falwell, you miserable scumbag. May you rot in your own personal conception of hell.

i may need some kind of typists’ wrist-brace or something. . . . my wrists are getting sore, and i sometimes have trouble picking up large books like i should be able to. . . . :-(

i don’t even know where I’d get something like that, or what to look for in one. Anyone? Maybe I should’ve asked the nurses in my class that ended last week. . .

Gaelic Storm have posted their tour schedule for the next ten months. . . . they’re playing three times in Dayton, Ohio this month, but there’s not a single date in Michigan in the next year. ::sulk::

For Canada Day, the CBC had a “Canadian History Quiz“. The Dominion Institute did a 20-question survey of 1,000 Canadians, and only one got every question; 2/3 got fewer than half the questions right. I got 13, though some were purely on dumb luck. (via ::schwagbag::)

Meanwhile, in England, the Blair government’s “Antisocial behaviour tsar” (I swear I’m not making this up), Louise Casey, is facing an investigation following allegations that she delivered a foul-mouthed after-dinner speech to an audience of chief police officers.. . . . Take that, Alanis! (doncha think?)

I got really bored Monday—no work and no school make for a fidgety Juicy—and went for a rather long bike ride (uses Google Maps, which is not compatible with some browsers). The ride down Packard through Pittsfield Township was not so much fun—it’s posted “No Winter Maintenance”, but some spring maintenance at least’d be nice—apparently the signs not only mean “we’re not going to clear the snow in the winter” but also “we’re not going to fix how fucked up the sidewalk gets because of the snow we aren’t clearing, either”.

• I like lists.
• What, I wonder, is the philosophy of the tripping leopard? — Tiny Cat Pants
• As the Washington Post reports, Republicans may want to think twice about tangling with Sen. Patrick Leahy. Leahy (D-VT) recently disclosed in Senate gift-reporting filings that he has received a gift of a handgun from an old college friend—and not just any handgun, but a .50-caliber Smith and Wesson with a 10-inch barrel.

  Bet Dick Cheney won’t be telling him to go fuck himself again anytime soon. . . .

• Michael McGrorty of Library Dust might be selling some bumper stickers if there is sufficient interest: “Libraries are Free / Librarians Aren’t” and “Librarians Are Worth Your Money”.
• Gaelic has been made an official language of the EU, but which Gaelic? Irish and Scottish Gaelic are different languages. . . .
• The Library Song!!!!
  

  There’s a place for you and a place for me,
  it’s the local public library.
  They have books and things that they lend for free
  It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library.

  Also, Library Science Jeopardy!

  via Google Directory::Librariana

• “I am the very model of computerized librarian“
  

  I navigate the Internet with speed and perspicacity;
  Evaluate each website for its content and veracity:
  In fact, in finding information, most utilitarian,
  I am the very model of computerized librarian.

  via Caveat Lector.

• Maybe someone should take a few of these or these to show some of those furry fuckers on the Diag. . . .