Just spotted this brief note from Wendy McElroy talking about a conversation she had with sf writer James Hogan. Turns out he no longer splits his time between the US and Ireland, but due to the Iraq war has left the US permanently for Ireland. More details at Wendy’s site.

Sweet heavens! Completely unrelated to the mission of this blog, but wow, some cool music videos over at Silent Sessions by (among others) two of my favorite current bands, Explosions in the Sky and The Album Leaf. Very different types of music, yet both are mainly instrumental. Sadly, I am so far removed from the music scene that I missed both Austin performances, only 90 minutes away. Might be of interest to a future Musical Maundering from Sunni…

A nice collection, more a comment on the aftermath than the causes themselves. Via Instapundit.

Female Muslim pop singer,Deeyah faces death threats for daring to speak her mind, and also stripping down from burka to bikini in a recent music video, “What Will It Be”. This video also shows several men and women with tape over their mouths, a pointed criticism at some repressive trends in many Islamic countries. Forced to leave Norway, where she was born to immigrant parents and started her musical career, she moved to London. There she now experiences the same death threats that forced her to leave the so-called liberal Norway. This FreeMuse site has some interesting articles on women and music censorship, in particular this one, which also can be downloaded as a PDF. View Deeyah’s video at this page. Not my kind of music, but still a great statement for the right to free speech and free expression.

My long delayed (and brief) response to this story about the apathy of the “download generation” falls on the eve of

Can’t say I was too surprised…

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in?
created with QuizFarm.com

Not quite your World’s Smallest Political Quiz, but rather a satirical quiz to see whether you fall into conservative, liberal, libertarian, or communist camps, with a twist. Don Hagen’s Satirical Political Beliefs Assessment Test pokes fun at all four groups. I found myself mostly in the “Antigovernment Libertine” group, though I wasn’t sure about #2, and disagreed with the premises for question #10, and too many questions dealt about voting (for this avowed non-voter, at least). Aside from those issues, reading most the answers were a blast, though at times the humor wandered away in the libertarian answers, replaced by what seemed like normal libertarian party platform statements. Total number of questions approaches 200, so some patience is required if you want to read them all.

Listened to NPR’s The World while driving home tonight and heard an interesting report about LibriVox . The site is a joint effort of volunteers around the world who record chapters of the books in the public domain. The audio files then are published, and can be downloaded or subscribed to as podcasts via iTunes. I plan on making full use of this site, and may even volunteer to read some chapters. I can’t say I’ve listened to that many audio books, but my listening habits while driving to work change all the time, and I might give this a shot.

February 15 is the deadline to nominate novels for the 2006 Prometheus Award. Eligible books must have been published for the first time in 2005 (or November/December 2004). If there’s such a book should think deserves the Prometheus Award for best novel, please email me at editor AT lfs DOT org.

Cynicism takes a blow to the chin? In a follow up to my last post, I need to remark that Oprah changed her mind at long last, and today railed against James Frey for the lies in book. What took so long? Perhaps some backlash and negative comments from her listeners (but not critics and other commentators) convinced her that truth does matter.