Official Web Site: NORAD Tracks Santa 2005

Keeping up with Santa Claus on Christmas Eve is a tough job, but our government's up to the task. Check out Santa's progress this year by clicking on the link in the title of this post.

Merry Christmas to all!

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Liberals Demand Santa Take the Bus!

In what has to be the most ridiculous news item this Christmas season, Mr. S. Claus of the North Pole has come under fire by the British government for the pollution caused by his annual Christmas eve deliveries.

It has been calculated that Santa's team of nine reindeer would emit methane with a global warming impact equivalent to more than 40,600 tonnes of greenhouse gases ...

A lump of coal in the Christmas stockings to all who support moving Santa out of his sleigh and into public transportation. Says Britain's Liberal Democrat transport spokesman:

... the best Christmas present for the environment would be if Santa took the bus, which would keep his total emissions output down to just 10,980 tonnes ...

Answer me this, Mr. Government Bureaucrat: Do you also want to slaughter Vixen, Blixen, Rudolph, and the rest? After all, they keep emitting that methane gas even when not pulling Santa's sleigh.

WAIT! I'm not sure I want an answer to that question. After all, you're a government bureaucrat, which means you haven't an ounce of common sense.

And a Merry Christmas to ya!

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CD Baby, Keep the Music Coming

I've been reading a lot lately about the changing economics of the music business. While I still buy the big, black plastic, two-sided CDs sold at thrift stores, which I play on one of my vintage record players (aka, my stereo), downloads off the Internet appear to be killing off CDs, just as cassette tapes killed the mass production of vinyl records, and in turn CDs killed cassettes. I'm hopeful, for the sake of music lovers, that the outcome will be more choices for the consumer.

Which brings me to CD Baby. That's their logo above. While looking for more information on who did the vocals on the original version of All I Want for Christmas is You, one of the best Christmas songs ever, I discovered that independent recording artists have a way of getting their music out to their fans.

The artists supply the CDs, which are then marketed by CD Baby. Instead of a dollar or so a copy sold by major labels, the artist receives $5 or $6 per sale from CD Baby. Looking over the web site, I see a lot of help being offered to new artists and to older artists who are unable to get a recording contract these days. Oh, if only John Denver were alive to get on board.

With over 116,000 artists to pick from, CB Baby is capitalism at its finest--an endeavor worth supporting. Check it out. Oh, I should add that CD Baby is keeping up with the changes in the technology of music delivery. They can help get an artist on the music download sites. By the time I wear out my collection of "albums," it won't matter. There'll be another technology that'll have replaced downloads. A possible candidate? Check out Mercora.

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Blogging Helps Reduce Information Overload?

Here's a different take on blogging. On the one hand we know that blogging has exploded in popularity, with millions of new blogs to discover, bookmark, and keep up with. OK, so blogging offers intriguing glimpses into the day's events, filtered through the minds of bloggers, but at the cost of investing the time to read them.

On the other hand, bloggers tend to specialize their interests, thus breaking the massive information flows generated in today's world into manageable bite size chunks:

"Bloggers actually act like filters for the day's news, for the day's gossip and commentary," researcher Darren Sharp says.

"They actually tailor the mass of information that is out there into a scale that's really fit for human consumption."

Still feeling the effects of information overload?

Darren Sharp's final words of advice are perhaps among the simplest to adopt. "Sometimes, it pays to switch off the computer and go for a walk on the beach," he says.

Now, if only I had a beach to go for a walk on. Oh well, the backyard will just have to do.

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Man's Best Friend--Fidocam to Combat Crime

I've often thought that if I were sent to Iraq to serve in a combat zone, I'd just as soon have my pit bull, Pup, as a partner as to have a human backing me up. Dogs aren't called man's best friend for no reason, right?

The dog in the picture illustrates the job assigned to Sammy and Zara, German Shepherds in the service of the Northumbria Police in Britain. Cops in Britain are unarmed, even four-legged ones. However, the tool strapped to the dog's head is a camera and transmitter. This dog's "mission impossible"? Enter a building and scope out the situation, sending pictures back to the police.

Police Chief Jim Soutar reports the following qualifications are sought in these canine recruits:

We're looking for dogs with above average drive who can operate under stressful conditions.

Two-legged cops probably need the same qualifications.

No mention is made in the linked article about the cost of hiring these canine crimefighters. One can only surmise that dog biscuits are cheaper than human wages and that the dogs don't demand two weeks of paid vacation every year.

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