Written by: Beck

I volunteered to host the COTV nearly three months ago, so I couldn't anticipate that I'd be on a business trip on the appointed day. As such, you lucky folks get your weekly carnival two days early!

While most of the posts to the carnival are voluntarily submitted by their respective authors, I've gone ahead and picked a few posts from some of my favorite websites that I felt like using the COTV platform to highlight. So, without further delay, I present to you this week's Carnival of the Vanities.

Editor's Selections:

First off I'd like to highlight two recent cases of New Media (i.e. blogs) trespassing on the hallowed grounds of Old Media. The first case is a joint effort by Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom and Bill Ardolino of INDC Journal: The CITIZEN JOURNALIST Report. They now have a weekly radio program hosted by Right Talk Radio. You can catch them at 3 PM each Thursday, with rebroadcasts available frequently.

The second instance of migration from blogs comes with the first ever edition of The New Libertarian [password: tnlv1i1]--the official publication of the Neolibertarian network. If you have any remaining uncertainties about what a neolibertarian is, this publication should remove them. Not surprisingly, Libertarian purists are not happy.

Next up, a blog I've long been a fan of now has a new URL and a new name to go with it. So if you had Aaron's Rantblog on your bookmarks, be sure to change it to the new URL: http://aarons.cc/. And don't forget, April 15 is Buy A Gun Day.

David Anderson suffered from some computer issues not too long ago, and has had a number of guest bloggers covering for him. If you were wondering what he's been up to in the meantime, have a look at this post. David's in one of the pictures if you know what to look for.

Ace of Spades announces that he has accomplished his greatest post ever. Naturally, as he has nowhere to go but down now, he is retiring from blogging. If the post doesn't make any sense to you, well, you've got about a year's worth of inside jokes to catch up on.

Finally, New Sisyphus has a post on a subject near and dear to my heart: getting Kofi Annan out of the United Nations. Granted, I don't know if Mr. Sisyphus shares my interest in going the next step to get the United States out of the United Nations, but losing Annan can't be a bad start.

Get That Good Mojo Going:

I'm not 100% sure why I decided to go with the eye-ball picture for this section. I think I must just like the caption that originally went with it: A gel like substance called the vitreous humor fills the eyes. I'll get back to you if I ever figure it out.

• To kick things off, I'll just quote Pratie Place's injunction: It's bad karma to ignore serendipity.


• Next, from The Green Lantern, something about shooting cats and hunting foster children. It's definitely an idea whose time has come.


• From The Nose On Your Face, the Top 9 Bush nicknames for Ted Kennedy. My personal favorite wasn't on the list. I guess that's just too bad for The Bloat.


• Strange Justice reports that you can get away with anything in Britain, so long as you were sleep walking at the time.


• The author of Assumption of Command, currently serving in Iraq, has a rather entertaining post about saluting in the military.


• The World According to Pete presents a primer on how to have fun at other people's high school reunion. Hint: grab a name tag and mingle.


• Taken in Hand asks the age old question: why do women prefer assholes? I myself haven't a clue, but am relieved regardless, being something of an accomplished asshole myself.


• Paul Noonan--not to be mistaken for the character from Caddyshack (I think)--of The Electric Company--not to be mistaken for the children's show (I hope)--got his hand on an as yet unreleased article from Paul Krugman presenting ways to fix social security. I myself am torn between option one (tax stay-at-home moms) and option two, which involves monkeys.


• neo-neocon would like you to know about deformed lobsters. I can honestly say this is the single most informative thing I've ever read on the subject of deformed lobsters.


• Lastly, Notes and Meditations starts things off with a quote from P.J. O'Rourke--always a good step--and then goes into a lengthy discussion of "aromatic American masculinity," about which I have no comment.

Business, Economics, and So On

Just couldn't resist this picture. That, and it will likely irk Goemagog, giving me an extra incentive to use it.

• To kick things off, Dr. Tony has a useful guide to health insurance, bankruptcy, and protecting yourself financially. I'd recommend this for just about anyone to read.


• Gaijin Biker of Riding Sun has an excellent article about the evolution of Japanese corporate culture and the influence foreigners are having in reshaping the business landscape in Japan. Of course, I'm a Japanophile, so this will probably be of less interest to many, but I highly recommend it nonetheless.


• The Conservative Cat provides a link-filled refutation of the economic myth that there's a conspiracy to prevent people from working from home.


• Ashish's Niti has a post about the trade deficit and asks the pertinent question: is a trade deficit really all that harmful?


• The Glittering Eye discusses issues confronting any attempt of creating an EU-type union among North American countries.

Sci-Tech

Insert semi-witty introduction here germane to science and technology. Note to self: avoid use of words like "germane" as they tend to not scan well. Good job.

• First up, Jody of PolySciFi Blog does a fantastic job of making a point about ethics in nanotechnology by referencing the movie Challenge of the GoBots. I'm not entirely sure what that point was (something about how ethics are good I think), but you just cannot go wrong with a reference to the GoBots.


• The Other Bloke's Blog has a post on specialized internet directories being used to refine the power of internet searches. I can recall first using Yahoo (back when it was just the hobby of a couple guys going to Stanford)--the original internet directory. I don't really have a point--I just like talking about how I was using the internet in 1994.


• Koranteng's Toli has an amusing (and quite thorough) post on cultural sensitivity influencing software development.


• Nick, of the aptly named The World According to Nick blog, in his first ever submission to a carnival, has a post about fear of technology titled, aptly, Fear of Technology. And if you should happen to notice that Nick's blog looks strangely similar to this one, that's because he's using the same May*Star designed template that I started INCITE out with.

On Blogging

This image was generated using the free typoGenerator. It's a pretty nifty little web-ap someone built using Google's image search function. I think it's pretty nifty and figured I'd use this space to give them a plug. Also, there are only two entries in this category, so I needed some filler to space things out a bit. You know. For the children.

• First up, Sophistpundit offers up On Blogging and Morality. My own personal opinion on the matter is that ethics in blogging becomes a self-reinforcing tool. Any blogger who posts bad information is going to get fact checked by roughly a million other people, have his name dragged through the mud (and other smelly brown semi-liquids), and lose readership. That readership is the one thing most bloggers feed on, and it's a rare blogger who will do anything to jeopardize that.


• Multiple Mentality sneaks in a late entry with a story that wasn't. And it involves not only eugenics, but also, fat people. Essentially, it's a story that many ran with in the blogosphere, and it turned out to be completely untrue. Oops.

Politics -- Because you just can't get enough of it

The last time I hosted a carnival, I saved the politics category for last. I figure we get enough of politics in our daily diet without adding more to it. For today's carnival, however, politics gets the second-to-last category. You'll see why I saved for last that which I, well, saved for last. Crazy suspense, ain't it?

• First up, from Eric Scheie of Classical Values (who, I might point out, is a fellow member of the Neolibertarian Network) posts a lengthy analysis essentially showing that despite a bi-partisan effort to cover itself up, government officials just can't seem to keep from exposing themselves.


• Enlighten New Jersey has a post on that never-ending source of quality blogfodder--corruption in New Jersey politics. Evidently, the new official policy is that New Jersey's corruption is the fault of the voters. Which, if that's the case, I've got some kickbacks coming.


• This post could easily have fit into the On Blogging category, but Technogypsy has self-categorized it as Politics, and who am I to disagree? Essentially, he's discussing the reality gap which mainstream journalists seem to suffer from. The solution, naturally: more blogging!


• For Dissect Left's COTV submission, I'll just let the author's description stand for itself: John Ray has up a post with links to stories about Gypsies, school
  shootings, Aryans, Winston Churchill and much more besides.


• Finally, Willisms reports that it would appear that Rock The Vote is no longer as painfully unhip as it has been in recent years; rather, they've gotten even worse. Perhaps "Rock The Vote" is a reference to the rocking chairs to be found dotting retirement communities.

I See Dead People

You knew it had to be coming. This has been an absolutely fantastic week for death. First Johnnie Cochrane kicks the bucket (right as I pulled down a $200 pot in a game of poker--thanks for looking out for me Al!), Terri Schiavo then shuffles off her mortal coil with more media attention than any one person has ever received before. Then the Pope decided he was tired of Terri upstaging him and decided to give up the fight as well (I wonder if he had a living will?). And finally, Mitch Hedberg died.

Mitch Hedberg, you ask? He was one of my favorite stand-up comedians. He's also about the only person to die lately that I was particularly upset about. Sure, that's kind of heartless, but I have a hard time getting worked up about deaths of people not directly related to me. Protein Wisdom was one of the only blogs to note his passing. He was only 37 years old. And now, back to your regularly scheduled carnival blogging.

• From The People's Republic of Seabrook, the one post in this section that doesn't involve the death of humans. Rather, it involves the death of thousands upon thousands of baby seals. And this whole time, I've thought baby seal clubbing was no longer a participant sport.


• TFS Magnum has a post showing what happens when the same rules which the rest of us must abide don't apply to star athletes. Namely, people start dying.


• From Better Living, you will find what is likely the only post commemorating the life of John Paul II via an elaborate discussion of David Bowie. Really. Have a look--it's worth reading.


• point2point presents a discussion of the right to live... and the right to die.


• Attaboy would like to talk to you about living wills. Helpful tip: make sure you have a living will before you find yourself in a persistent vegetative state.


• Brian J. Noggle would like to point out that the Republican's principled stand on Terri Schiavo isn't what will cost them votes in 2006, it's their trouncing upon the principle of federalism.


• Last, but certainly not least, ShrinkWrapped has a post amusingly titled Libido and Thanatos. The title pretty much says it all.

And that wraps up another Carnival of the Vanities. Hope you enjoyed your stay at INCITE. Feel free to have a look around the place, and we always welcome new readers, so if you'd like to bookmark and/or blogroll us, you'll have our thanks.

I'm going to be on the road for the next few days, but should be back to my usual frenetic pace of blogging this Friday. See you then.

Update: I'm afraid I managed to leave out a submission from Laurence Simon's latest effort, the Onion-esque The IFOC News. Go read it. Unless you're easily offended, in which case, well, read it anyway and enjoy your righteous indignation.