Bloggasm

It appears that a parent didn’t like the positive portrayal of communism in a book about Cuba and complained about it. The end result: As is all too usual, the library pulled it.

School library pulls book about Cuba after parent’s complaint:

A children’s book about traveling to Cuba has been pulled from a Miami-Dade County school library’s shelf for review after a parent complained about the book’s depiction of life under a communist government, officials said Wednesday.

The Spanish-language book, “Vamos a Cuba” or “A Visit to Cuba” in English by Alta Schreier, contains images of smiling children wearing uniforms of Cuba’s communist youth group and a carnival celebrating the Cuban revolution of 1959, said Joseph Garcia, a spokesman for the school district.

“This parent is himself an immigrant from Cuba and seeing it firsthand doesn’t feel the book is a fair and accurate representation of life in Cuba under the current regime,” Garcia said. No other complaints about the book have been reported, he said.

Ok librarians. Here’s a note to you: If someone asks you to pull something from the shelves? Don’t.

Seriously though, why does it seem like every day there’s a new news story about a librarian pulling a book from a shelf after parents complain? Do librarians universally have no spines?

Oooh Ooh, did you see the very clever pun that I had in that last sentence? Man, I’m so witty.

There’s an article over at the Washington Post that talks about new websites that are getting popular. It claims that growth is slowing at some of the most well-known internet sites and it’s getting steadily bigger in social-networking sites.
New Trends in Online Traffic::

While growth is slowing at most top Internet sites, it is skyrocketing at sites focused on social networking, blogging and local information.

The dramatic success of those Internet categories is apparent from a recent online-traffic analysis provided by market research firm ComScore Media Metrix, which examined visitor growth rates among the 50 top Web sites over the past year.

…

The number of monthly visitors to each site rose at rates ranging from 185 percent (Citysearch) to 528 percent (Blogger.com) between February 2005 and February 2006. Their growth far exceeded the 4 percent increase in overall Internet visitors in the United States during that period.

Watch this space in the future, because I’ll have an exclusive interview with a person who has used a networking site (Facebook) to hook up with girls and have sex. Scandalous!

via Search engine blog

I couldn’t help but notice that you have hundreds of thousands of readers. And you no doubt make a good amount of money off your blog (enough for a full-time living, no?) just like other A-list bloggers. Now since you obviously have the money and the time, could you please take the extra thirty seconds it actually takes to explain what you’re linking to? We’re really not asking much, we just don’t want to follow every god damn link just in order to figure out what it is. Thanks ever so much.

The same goes for you Atrios.

Thanks!
Simon Owens

Remember Kirk Cameron, the charming actor from Growing Pains? Well, deep down I always knew there was something wrong with evolution, and he finally pinpoints it for us. He also teaches us how to outsmart atheists in this hilarious video: The Way of the Master

I wish I could somehow dub over my commentary on this video, it’d be too easy to tear apart their arguments.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve found the perfect story for Bill O’reilly to devote weeks of segments to. Never has a piece of news fit the focus of his show so perfectly as this.

What two things does he like to talk about the most? Liberal University scandals and child molesters. He dedicates at least twenty minutes of every show to each.

Well, as it just so happens, a local child molester was arrested recently, and he was a Shippensburg University Police Officer as well.

Okay, Bill, let’s play this one by the books:

(more…)

As a college student, I know that tools like AIM, Facebook, and Myspace are becoming easy ways for young people to hook up and have sex. But the New York Times Magazine has an article exploring an avenue I never really considered before: I Want Your Text:

It wouldn’t surprise us, in fact, if the prevalence of texting has dramatically increased the rate of appointment sex in this city. It’s just the right level of intrusiveness: Your target gets the message even in a noisy bar, but unlike a phone call, it won’t wake him up from a snooze in front of The Daily Show. You can successfully express interest, but texting’s short format allows you to maintain an air of aloofness. And text rejection is much easier to get (and give) than struggling through an awkward booty phone call.

“It’s by far the best way to set up a sex date,” says Kate, a 34-year-old designer in the East Village. “No worrying if your voice sounds needy or desperate or neurotic. In texts you can be blunt, erotic, funny—all the things you want to be.”

via collision detection

As someone who pretends to be a movie buff, I think it’s awesome that Netflix is buying up the distributor rights to a bunch of small indie movies: Netflix widens niche by broadening tastes:

So it’s no surprise that Netflix is moving into distributing more indie titles. On a mission to bring viewers movies they might never come across, Sarandos has acquired various rights to 175 titles, including the Hal Hartley art flick “The Girl From Monday” and several documentaries from distributor DocuRama, the Sundance Channel and PBS’ “POV” indie film showcase.

via cinematech