Look out Dell, Gateway and Compaq - the Barbie PC is riding your tail. What, no Ken PC?

McDonald's pushes slaughterhouses to improved animal treatment
Way to go, Ronald! It's great to see such a powerful corporation work to improve the treatment of farm animals.

WebWasher is a wonderful utility program that filters out banner ads. It works unobstrusively in the background - all you see on the screen is a little systray icon - and almost all banner ads are suddenly gone! And if one slips by, you just right click on it and tell WebWasher to filter that too. What an excellent invention! It's free to home users, small charge for commercial use. Download it from this German software company.

One little problem, however! You have to turn it off when using Blogger, or your weblog won't get updated.

Yogi Yorgesson now has a web site. Great job by Stephen Howard in putting this together. Lots of NW connections - he was born in Tacoma. And yes, a fish can out-perform a skunk.

Who hid the halibut on the poop deck?
Oh who hid the halibut on the poop deck?
I never never knew
What screwball in the crew
Who had hid the halibut on the poop deck.

More books -

• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Based on a True Story, by Dave Eggers. One the one hand, this is the story of a 23 year old guy whose parents die and leave him to care for his 8 year old brother. On the other hand, it's a smart alecky book full of self-referential humor and, mandatory for one of his generation, plenty of irony, starting with the copyright page. My first reaction to his story was - what a jerk - he's so self-centered and obsessive. Then it dawned on me that this reminded me of someone I know, someone who perhaps has ADHD, or as a gentler age might put it, an artistic temperment. In real life, he's the kind of guy you'd be happy to say hello to and just as happy to say goodbye to, if you know what I mean. On the written page, his blunt honesty and sense of humor do well. He does go on - this is one of those books where I skip a few pages every now and then - just more blah blah blah.
• Of Two Minds: The Growing Disorder in American Psychiatry, by T.M. Luhrmann. Luhrmann is an anthropologist who studied mental health care workers in this country. She explains the great divide between drug therapy and psychotherapy. Once, psychotherapy was king, and all mental illnesses were explained using Freud's theories. Then came effective drugs, such as lithium and Prozac. Now, the psychotherapists are in decline. She is sympathetic to the Freudians (while giving short shrift to other talking therapies), but the data in the book damns them despite her efforts. To me, the bottom line is that, while psychotherapy may be good for you, so is a balanced diet and regular excercise. And your health insurance won't cover a cobb salad nor membership to a gym. See any Woody Allen movie for more.
• Sin Boldly! Dr. Dave's Guide to Writing the College Paper, by David Williams. The New Yorker reviewed this and trashed it. I saw it in a bookstore and started thumbing through it and it looked good. And indeed it is good - the New Yorker reviewer took it as recommending the only way to write, which it does not. It's a guide to writing a (non-fiction) essay. The advice is explicit and I think that's helpful. You can ignore it, of course, but I much prefer a book that takes a strong position. It's useful for anyone wanting to write better essays.

O Canada! A National Swan Song? (via Metafilter)
Does Canada's identity consist merely of being not-American? Will Canada join the United States? Thoughts from the Washington Post's former Canada correspondent. The Canadians I know don't think this way at all, but there certainly is some kind of trend there. What is the point, after all, of those border delays and different currencies?

The Supreme Court and abortion:

Justice	Pres.	Age	Life Exp.	Abortion
John Paul Stevens	Ford	78	8	Pro choice
William Rehnquist*	Nixon	74	10	Pro life
Sandra Day O'Connor	Reagan	68	18	Pro choice
Antonin Scalia	Reagan	62	19	Pro life
Anthony Kennedy	Reagan	62	19	Pro life
Stephen Breyer	Clinton	60	20	Pro choice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg	Clinton	65	21	Pro choice
David Souter	Bush	59	21	Pro choice
Clarence Thomas	Bush	50	29	Pro life

*Chief Justice (Reagan, 1986)

Their abortion position is taken from how they ruled in the June 28th partial-birth abortion case, decided by a 5-4 vote. It's interesting to note that although 7 out the 9 were appointed by Republicans, 3 of those 7 are pro choice. The life expectancy numbers are from RetireWeb. Stevens (pro choice) and Rehnquist (pro life) seem like the ones who would be likely replaced during the next Presidency.

There's a fine long interview with guitar player Eric Schoenberg in folkandbluesnews.com. Eric is one of my favorite guitar fingerpickers, just a wonderful player, and a teacher at PSGW. He has a shop in the little town of Tiburon, across the bay from San Francisco. If we manage to get our driving trip down to L.A. going this fall, we will stop in and check out all the fabulous acoustic guitars.

Social Venture Partners is a philanthropic group in Seattle that supports children's and educational charities. Not only do the partners donate money, they also volunteer and use their business experience to help out. SVP was founded by local hi tech luminaries including Paul Brainerd, Scott Oki and Ida Cole.

I had the pleasure of introducing Joules Graves at the Bumbershoot festival yesterday. Joules is a wonderful and original performer. Her music is like hip-hop but with an acoustic folky twist. She drew a crowd of several hundred, most of whom were dancing. She is a rising star, catch her show at venues like the Century Ballroom Oct. 27th while you can.