It appears to be a link, sir

My last set of random links until Japan. Consequently, this is also probably going to be my last update until Saturday morning (US time), so my political Manifesto Lite will have to wait until another day. I'll see if I can hook up in DFW or something, though.

Here's a veritable slew of stuff to make up for it:

ESPN: "Ex-Duke star Redick arrested for DWI"
As someone on the UNC LJ group said: "I wonder if he'll write a poem about it."

Time: "Are Left-Leaning Bloggers Ready for Their Close-up?"
So this last weekend Daily Kos, the largest left-of-center blog on the Internet, held its first annual conference in Las Vegas (the marginally-wittily-named Yearly Kos). Though the 1,000+ attendance may not be groundshattering, the roll call of attendees and speakers--Mark Warner, Harry Reid, Wesley Clark, Tom Vilsack, and NC-13's own Brad Miller, among others--demonstrates that many politicians think that these people mean business.

I have a slightly love-hate relationship with Daily Kos. Too many of their second-tier bloggers, in my view, spend too much time on invective and not enough time putting ideology above party lines. Nevertheless, as the vanguard of a grassroots movement with a real motivation for political reformation (as in removing corruption and bureaucracy, not yanking everything as far left as they can), they're doing a good job. Anyway, the above is a moderate-length, faintly-praising report on the convention in general, though it's sort of cheating since the author is former blog hyper-celebrity Wonkette.

MSNBC: Meet The Press, June 11 Transcript
This also features Daily Kos (namely, founder Markos Moulitsas) and its convention, but does a decent job of covering the entire blog-based movement and brings in some figures from across the political spectrum. Unfortunately, this means it's also pretty darn long. An edited version of the broadcast is available here; I found this interesting primarily because Markos somehow manages to go the entire interview without moving a muscle below his neck. Not a bad speaker, though.

AlphaDictionary: "A Glossary of Quaint Southernisms"
I stumbled across this and found it sort of interesting, but after about fifteen minutes on the Internet you learn to be leery of any linguistic information you find online. So I did a bit of research--and came across an astonishing fact. AlphaDictionary was founded by Dr. Robert Beard--the only product that I've ever heard of of the UNC Linguistics program! Astonishing! (Note: If you're some advisor or who-knows-what reading this blog five years from now when deciding whether to hire me to teach linguistics, have pity on me. I'm just a simple little undergrad.)

Granted, nobody says 90% of the words on the list anymore, but I definitely enjoy letting loose a 'might could' every once in a while.

2006 WebCartoonists' Choice Awards- Final Nominations
This is one of those awards lists that reads like the superlatives page in the Minor Podunk High School yearbook: you keep on seeing the same five people on the list over and over again. I can understand if they somehow think there are only ten comics out there worthy of recognition, and they are good choices and all, but do they have to emphasize it by creating awards for every conceivable category? "Outstanding Science Fiction Comic"--that makes sense, the best comic out there in exemplifying science fiction. But "Outstanding Short Form Comic"?

Like I said, though, it's not as if they're picking terrible comics or anything, so check that topic out if you're looking for something new to read (or if you don't read webcomics at all, tsk tsk). There's more or less something for everyone out there.

SpaceCasesTV.com
Thanks to LiarXAgerate for bringing this to my attention. This isn't really a noteworthy site by any stretch of the word, but it did remind me of what was far and away my favorite show when I was 10 years old. Interestingly, absolutely nobody from this group went on to any reasonable acting success--except for one Jewel Staite (Catalina), who apparently had a big role in Firefly/Serenity. Devil if I'd know.

Anyway, see y'all in a few days.