It’s been a  month since we brought Sasha home and all is going well. She visited the office for a day, and loved it. How not? Everyone who visits her brings kibble and is incredibly impressed at her ability to sit, shake ‘paws’, lie down, and roll over. (Any tips on how to train her to ‘play dead are appreciated!)

We had one big adventure when she discovered that the M:tG card boxes we were using to help her get into and out of her playpen were filled with cards. How far does 300 cards spread? The picture says it all.

She’s growing so quickly it is almost a little frightening. At 8 weeks she was 6.6 pounds. At 12 weeks, 15.6 pounds! Here’s a pic of her at about 10 weeks — midway (and learning to jump onto chairs!)

Thanksgiving was lovely. The whole family (the west coast contingent at least) was here to celebrate. Connor (no surprise at only 20 mos old) was more than a little upset at Sasha’s relentless “I want to lick your face” behavior, but didn’t actively cry. He just got right into an adult lap and surveyed the wriggling puppy from safety. (No good pictures of them together, or even of Connor. )

By the end of the trip he was just turning his back on her when she jumped up, knowing an adult was going to order her down — and that she’d obey . . . eventually. They did well together. Sasha was, in fact, incredibly good about having people in the room paying no attention to her, and in the next room making noise, and getting up at all hours to feed and other things. I was more than a little surprised at how well it went with a just-ten-week-old puppy.

Here’s a great picture of the feasting table than J. took:

I ‘get’ wanting to be the first — but what’s the point if you aren’t right?

Seattle Times link: UW Researcher faked AIDS data

“Investigators found that Brodie falsified data in 15 instances — in published and unpublished journal articles, and grant proposals. The research in question included cellular responses to the HIV virus. . .

“The problem with things like this is that people build on someone else’s knowledge. It wastes money, it wastes time and it can lead science in a wrong direction,” Liggitt said. “Even the smallest misguidance can cripple a very large investigation.””

sad, sad, sad.

China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate

Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.

“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.

from: www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2194682.ece

China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) says it will approve all reincarnations to determine if they are illegal or invalid.

“It is an important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation living Buddhas,” says SARA.

from: www.panasianbiz.com/2007/08/reincarnation_of_living_buddha.html

Ratcheting up its control over Tibetan Buddhism, China on Friday asserted the sole right to recognize living Buddhas, reincarnations of famous lamas that form the backbone of the religion’s clergy.

All future incarnations of living Buddhas related to Tibetan Buddhism “must get government approval,” the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the State Administration for Religious Affairs.

from: http://goldsea.com/Asiagate/708/03buddhas.html

Yes folks, thats right. The Communist Chinese regime has banned reincarnation by Buddhas and bodhisattvas without permission from the government.

No further comment on my part.

Drak.net is my webhost, has been for year. The recently sent me this notice, and I’m darned proud to be passing it along.:

We wanted to send out this special announcement that as of today, DrakNet is now 100% Carbon Neutral, and you can now brag that your website is truly green.

DrakNet now purchases Green Tags monthly for the amount of energy that is used to run the servers, lights, etc. Green Certificates (also known as Green Tags) are a simple way to offset the use of carbon-based energy sources and effectively power a business (or your home) on 100% renewable energy resources, without changing electricity providers.

We have chosen to purchase Green Tags for 110% of our carbon footprint, for 100% solar power. What this means is that for any energy DrakNet uses in our operations, that same amount of energy (+10% in case our calculations are incorrect) will be pumped back into the grid from solar power generation, essentially “cleaning” the energy, neutralizing our negative effect on the earth, and allowing us to claim to be “solar powered” and “green”.

DrakNet struggled for several years between our energy consumption, and service – there are solar hosts in a few solar data centers. The pricing, however, both for shared and dedicated servers is no where near economical and would effectively negate the pricing structure our clients have come to rely on, and their reliability is not yet up to the par of a world class data center.

By purchasing certified green certificates (or green tags), we have been able to negate our power hungry servers and make sure that our impact on the earth is neutralized.

We look forward to the day when solar energy data centers offer as much value as power hungry data centers – and when they do, we will be there.

As always, thanks for choosing DrakNet!
Always blue, but now completely green!
http://www.drak.net

Technocowboy and I were talking about books we like/love/recommend. He posted his list (here). Here’s mine:

CS Friedman:

Everything. Start with In Conquest Born and then move right along. Her take on the vampire mythos (The Madness Season) is unique. This Alien Shore will get you thinking about technology and our interaction with it in a new way. Oh, and when she took on fantasy (in her Cold Fire trilogy) she created one of the meanest and most honorable anti-heros I have ever found.

Julian May:

Not everything, sad to say. (I really didn’t like her Rampart Worlds trilogy). But Intervention/Metaconcert and the Galactic Milieu trilogy are amazing. Oh, and she bridges them into her Pliocene quadrilogy (600 millions years earlier) in a way that feels clunky, but works perfectly.

Spider & Jeanne Robinson:

Star Dance, Star Mind, and Star Seed

zero gravity dance.

think about it.

Now go get them

Spider Robinson’s Callahan books:

Fair warning: he delights in word games and puns. But not at the expense of the reader.

A bunch of barflys save the earth. Three times.

Jaqueline Carey

(A recent discovery.) I picked up Kushiel’s Dart, seduced by its cover and the first line: “Lest anyone should suppose that I am a cuckoo’s child, got on the wrong side of the blanket by lusty peasant stock and sold into indenture in a shortfallen season, I may say that I am House-born and reared in the Night Court proper, for all the good it did me”

This is a sexy book, exploring the intersection of pain and pleasure with delicacy for those of us who do not understand (except intellectually) that there *is* an intersection.

I’m in the middle of the follow up: Kushiel’s Chosen (savoring it slowly, as it should be), and am looking forward to the rest of the books. (She’s at five, now, I believe.)

Juliet Marillier

At its core, the first book of the Sevenwaters Trilogy (Daughter of the Forest) is a retelling of a fairy tale (the tale of the seven brothers turned into swans until their sister rescues them). But it also tells a tale of early Celtic Paganism and history in a way reminiscent of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “Avalon” books.

This list is by no means complete. Or finished. But it’s what I have now.

Author Madeleine L’Engle, whose novel “A Wrinkle in Time” has been enjoyed by generations of schoolchildren and adults since the 1960s, has died, her publicist said Friday. She was 88.L’Engle died Thursday at a nursing home in Litchfield of natural causes, according to Jennifer Doerr, publicity manager for publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux.The Newbery Medal winner wrote more than 60 books, including fantasies, poetry and memoirs, often highlighting spiritual themes and her Christian faith.

All I know is that I recently re-read the Winkle in Time trilogy, and it holds up — for adults — very, very, well.

So sad.