Will be gone to our preseason "coaches' retreat" until Thursday.
Stay out of trouble.

One of the best optical illusions I've seen: here.

A couple of tech sites I've found: Daily Rotation and Nanodot.

I've rounded up a few sites that are basically metablogs - summarizing the top links of other blogs: DayPop, Blogdex, Blogosphere.

I was motivated by this letter. It's from a U.S. Special Ops Colonel in Iraq and was posted on freerepublic.com - It Ain't Necessarily So.

Finally, some news from Iraq that cannot be spun by leftists - AP reports that "Saddam's Two Sons Were Killed in U.S. Raid" - FoxNews - Yahoo Full Coverage.

David Kelly was named by the BBC as the main source of a news report alleging the government exaggerated intelligence to strengthen the case for war in Iraq. He committed suicide.

Mike Price is back. He's suing Alabama for $20 million over his firing & Sports Illustrated for $20 million as well.

Whether he's guilty or not, Kobe Bryant has blown it.

The former roommate of missing Baylor University basketball player Patrick Dennehy has been charged Monday with murder.

A lot of scandal while we were at the coaching clinic:

Quentin Tarantino's long-awaited fourth film, Kill Bill, could be released in two parts. Finally...maybe.

I will be in Montgomery, AL from today through Saturday for The State Coaches' Clinic/All-Star Sports Week. I will be w/o easy internet access, so I may not post 'til Saturday night.

I mentioned Daniel C. Dennett's idea of calling people like us, who don't believe in the supernatural, Brights. Now he's got a column in the NYT on The Bright Stuff.

You don't have to be a nutty SUV-hater to like the 2300-mile American Solar Challenge along route 66. I love solar power. It's free!!

I am entertained by Ann Coulter. She is a leftist's nightmare - something that should not exist - an attractive woman who is a true-believing conservative who will not shut up and has no fear - she'll say anything to win an argument. Her latest bestseller, Treason, accuses the Democratic Party of being treasonous - since World War II. She has actually led some conservative/libertarians to question her on this one - (Frontpage.com, Andrew Sullivan). She doesn't care.

Reason magazine is great. This article on the anti-pleasure principle of nuts like the CSPI is a perfect example.

An essay in the Financial Times by the author of a new book about Stalin's "court". A few weeks ago we re-watched Inner Circle, an excellent film about the people around Stalin that addressed similar ideas.

U.S. Grant won the American Civil War.
There's little doubt that Beyonce's Grant's Tomb Dance was a bad idea.
But if there was no fighting going on, I don't think Grant would have been sober enough to care.

My principal Ed Nichols is the new assistant superintendent for personnel for Decatur City. I'm not happy about this. It's good for him, but I like him & am apprehensive about a new boss. I've got two more years to get tenure...

We talked about lifters last year. These "anti-gravity devices" are in the news again.

A Wired News article on Machinima - animated movies made with videogame 3-D software.

(in desperate gasping tones) Phone...line...was...cut. Must...blog...from...school.

Liberia? Where was I? Gotta catch up...

A friend from college, J.R., who spent his time altered, computing & recording songs has made his entire library available online (through the auspices of Poobie) - here.

Ed Lu, a NASA man on the Space Station, is sort of keeping a blog. Notice the picture with the best caption ever - "Godzilla is shown for scale".

Some cool fish, rare & new species, found in the Tasman Sea.

Baseball: It seems to me that Dontrelle Willis should have been on the NL All-star Team: rookie, 8-1 with a 2.13 ERA in 11 Major League starts, high leg kick, great attitude. He has said all the right things about being left off by Dusty Baker.

But in truth I find that the older I get, the less & less I care about the All-Star game. ESPN has eliminated the fact that I never saw AL guys except for every other Saturday & All-Star games. Who really cares anymore?

A review of Robert Harvey's new book, Comrades: the Rise and Fall of World Communism, in The Telegraph.

When government people who don't really know what they're doing or don't really care about Americans' privacy (i.e.- Total Information Awareness) tick off smart people who do know what they're doing, you get things like this - Government Information Awareness. Oh my... (in Wired).

I remember him as the king of the diving catch for the Crimson Tide. Now Joey Jones is one of the top coaches in Alabama High School Football. His Mountainbrook team beat us (Austin) in the 1st round of last year's playoffs. I talked to him before the game & he was particularly nice, considering the circumstances. He'll be at Alabama eventually, mark it down.

We've been discussing President Bush's hispanic federal court nominees today. Here's a semi-leftist column in the HoustonChronicle.com that actually outlines the issues involved.

Virginia Postrel discusses the lighting in Victoria's Secret & how Texas is legislating
against it. - D Magazine (Dallas/Ft. Worth).

Great column by Victor David Hanson at NRO about the American soldiers in Iraq & the amazing work they are doing with so very little support.

Michael Kinsley finally has a good idea - Abolish Marriage - Let's really get the government out of our bedrooms.

The New Cartoons on TNN - Gary the Rat (Kelsey Grammer), Ren & Stimpy (yes, it is), Stripperella (Pamela Anderson).

The new TNN knows the way to a guy's heart - Kansas City Star.

Following Toshiba's lead, NEC has unveiled a laptop computer that is powered by a fuel cell that uses methanol. Now wood alcohol will be good for something besides going blind.

A couple of new places to learn about gadgets:
Gizmodo:The gadgets weblog and Kevin Kelly's 'Recomendo'.

CRL just subjected me to one of the worst horror movies of all time -
Faust: Love of the Damned.

A really unsettling article in The Guardian about teenagers kidnapped by their parents & sent to a 'behavior modification center'. Couldn't you just whip 'em & ground 'em for a month?

P.J. O'Rourke, one of our favorite authors, reviews the junior senator from New York's new book. It sounds like it took six ghost writers to produce one of he most inane biographies of all time.