The 30th Bestofme Symphony is up at XSet. Join Rob for a short but very sweet performance of the very best in the Blogosphere.

Next week's post extravaganza will be hosted by Wetwired.

Hosting: Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note and I'll get you on the schedule.

Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.

Spread the word: Webloggers, how about some linky love? Just think of how happy your readers would be if you gave them a path to such a wonderful reading selection.

Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There's one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.

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The vote is in and a survivor has perished. The oddity this week is that the vote was universal - even the departing player voted to die.

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I'm pacing myself sergeant!

Okay, okay. So these links are a little late. It's not that I've been putting off posting on them, it's that I just about totally forgot about them. Anyway...

I won a caption contest at Electric Venom! Sweet! Hey, Kate? Where's my prize?

Pixy Misa posted a foolproof Guide to Detecting Journalistic Bias. I've tried it numerous times over the past week and it's worked 100% of the time. Spooky. His Magic, Part 1 post is super-fine also.

BigWig talks about sex and sexuality and just what a sexy man is. Long story short, it's me. Well, according to me it is.

I had a couple more but they've been lost to inadverdent deletions. Never use your news aggregator as a storage medium. Instead of those I offer this modern foil at Bloviating Inanities: Haikuenheit 911. Yeah, nothing beats haikus about Fat Bastard lying shill inhumane propagandist Michael Moore.

UPDATE: I found one of 'em! I had actually emailed it to myself so as not to lose it. That's some bright thinking on my part. I deserve serious kudos for thinking of that. The link that's lost no longer was to Ace's fantastic ripping of the blatantly lying press over ties between Iraq and Al-Quaeda.

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It's the last day for the 1st Annual Simon's Desperate Enough Willing To Buy Readers Charity Drive. The winner has been selected but there's still time left to drive up Simon's donation. Just get over to his site and do your part to raise his average hit count. Any increase in this last day will get a HK$4 donation instead of a HK$2 donation (about fifty cents instead of 25 cents).

Oh yeah - you should read some of his stuff too. He's pretty good.

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Dana of Note-It Posts has dropped 8 pounds and 15 ounces. Proud papa has the details over here. (It's guy safe - no gross stuff you need a medical degree or a uterus to read without flinching).

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Immunity Challenge III is up for voting at Survivor: Blogosphere Edition.

I can't decide which to vote for - they're all really good.

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Simon has started a new blog to help showcase new blogs. Sound confusing? It's not nearly so difficult as my description makes it sound.

Basically it allows new blogs (under 3 months old) to submit a post that will be presented for anybody to read. It'll give us established folk a place to keep an eye out for the new talent the way NZ Bear's New Blog Showcase contest used to.

You can read about the particulars here.

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The 29th Bestofme Symphony is up at The Smallest Minority. Join our host Kevin for a tour of the very best in the Blogosphere.

Next week's post extravaganza will be hosted by Xset.

Hosting: Would you like to host the Symphony? Send me a note and I'll get you on the schedule.

Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.

Spread the word: Webloggers, how about some linky love? Just think of how happy your readers would be if you gave them a path to such a wonderful reading selection.

Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There's one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.

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President Announces Controversial New Educational Initiative

Standing in front of the Los Angeles Times building on Spring Street and surrounded by aides, President Bush put forth a new and long-overdue proposal today, to the cheers of thousands of long-suffering readers of that paper, to start to repair the tragic situation with the American journalism system. He called it "No Reporter Left Behind."

"For too many years have we seen the sad evidence accumulating that our nation's media outlets and journalism schools simply aren't achieving what they must for our nation to maintain its first-place ranking in freedom of speech and a properly informed public," he declared. "Compared to journalists of a few decades ago, today's reporters show an increasing inability to comprehend simple English or basic statistics, to exercise logic, or to even recognize that they're Americans."

Thank goodness and about damn time!

(Hat tip to No.2 Pencil) more...

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Jimmie of Suburban Sundries Shack has won immunity this week. Congrats Jimmie! Now we wait for tomorrow when we hear who gets voted off of Blogtiki.

The contestants are behaving far too much like a 12 step support group in the comments over there. We want blood and braggadocio. Go poke them with a stick.

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I'm an irredeemably eejitous, liberal, tight as fuck, pathetically simple-minded, dribbling child!

How rude. Calling me a liberal*...why I aughta...

See how compatible you are with me!

(Snaked off Robert's beal post, and if that doesn't sound naughty then I don't know what does.)

* I kid. Being one of those folks mostly in the middle a lower case "L" liberal label fits as well as a lower case "C" conservative label. Which is to say, not tolerably well at all.

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The 28th Bestofme Symphony is up at The Owners Manual. Join Al Bundy (and Gary Cruse) for a tour of the finest reading in the Blogosphere.

Next week's Symphony will be hosted by The Smallest Minority (http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/).

BRIBERY: WeÂ’re so short on our host schedule that I'm resorting to bribery again. Send me an email to volunteer to host and you'll get a code for a week of free blogads on ZeroIntelligence.net. That site's getting just over 1100 unique visits a day so you're bound to pick up a reader or two.

Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week's edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.

Email Reminders: If you'd like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There's one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.

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Well, okay it's just one Pixy. Pixy Misa to be precise, but it is one excellent Carnival of the Vanities.

Pixy raises the bar for meme hosts again with a stupendously poetic work. When I read through this I had this picture in my mind's eye of Pixy in a black turtleneck, beret perched jauntily on his head, half sitting on a three legged stool on the stage of a dark and smoky café, snapping his fingers to an imaginary beat as he recited his poems.* Yeah, that's how cool it is.

So go visit and get your weekly Carnival fix.

*Oddly enough there was nothing gay about the beret.

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The Bestofme Symphony is a half year old now. Imagine that! This little meme has made it to its 27th edition, been hosted by a score of blogs and continues chugging along under its own power. The only thing it hasn't had yet is an Instalanche, but we'll keep hoping... (Hello? Mr.Reynolds, sir? Over here!)

[update] I mistakenly dropped Simon's submission. I'm adding it now but since it's Thursday most folks have probably already read this and we'll have it in next week's edition too. Simon's entry was 2004 Annual Family Report. It's an "annual report" with a difference - this one is about important things. [/update]

Today's reading begins with Zero Intelligence and an article called Pink - The color of the beast. It seem that schools have been having a problem with the color pink. It's a little Queer Eye for the Gangbanger Guy.

The Smarter Cop gives us Followed to a "T". Pietro doesn't know why John F*** Kerry's making such a big deal of President Bush's Iraq policy. After all, based on Kerry's editorialized suggestions for Iraq in 2002, the President easily gets 100%.

Andrew from Dodgeblogium asks if there is Hope for British music? This is the post (but one) that started the whole band thing going. G.o.D. may not be where they want to be just yet, but they sure have come a long bloody way, that is for sure.

The Owners Manual arrives with White Talking. Bill Cosby said it better (well, that's arguable) but Gary said it before he did.

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1 Jim, it takes being great to see goodness. Thanks.

Posted by: LeeAnn at June 07, 2004 12:23 PM (HxCeX)

2 Not just any goodness either. This is cheesy goodness we're talking about! To be perfectly fair it was Susie who recognized that particular chunk of cheesy goodness.

Posted by: Jim at June 07, 2004 12:37 PM (IOwam)

3 Thanks, Jim! [an obscure remark bound to start rumor and innuendo throughout the blogosphere ].

Posted by: Susie at June 07, 2004 03:17 PM (tEteH)

4 I thought I'd sent you something for this? Also you've got and open strike after the LA times link bit.

Posted by: Simon at June 10, 2004 01:37 AM (UKqGy)

5 Sorry Simon, I don't see anything from you. :-( Thanks for noting the tag mess-up!

Posted by: Jim at June 10, 2004 05:15 AM (saeHM)

6 Doh! Simon's right, I dropped the ball. All fixed now.

Posted by: Jim at June 10, 2004 05:42 AM (saeHM)

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I got 147 out of 200 at the most difficult vocabulary test I've ever taken.

(Hat tip to A Small Victory)

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...but did you know how desperate he is for readers? First there was his take-over attempt of Snooze Button Dreams. Although the offer is still technically available it looks like it hasn't raised quite enough shareholder support. So now he's resorting to flat out bribery.

According to (the admittedly imperfect) Sitemeter the current daily average readership of this blog is 203 people. That's worthy, especially given the high quality of this readership. But it is time to take it to the next level. It is time for a readership drive. And I'm prepared to pay for it.

In 2 weeks I will check Sitemeter again. For every extra reader above the current 203 I will donate HK$2 (about US25 cents) to a charity. The charity will be at the discretion (with my agreement) of the person who is able to generate the most additional traffic to this site.

A quarter per additional average viewer? I know what you're thinking. What's a quarter worth these days? Well, according to the Feed the Children site, every quarter donated keeps Sally Struthers fed for 7 more minutes. Or it can buy a village of African children shoes and a mo-ped. Only one mo-ped of course. And a quarter's worth of gasoline isn't exactly going to get them very far.

So I vow that if this is the blog that refers the most new readers to Simon I will not select any charity associated with Sally Struthers as the beneficiary of Simon's largesse.

Thank you and good day.

PS - Don't forget that you need to visit Simon for this whole thing to work.

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Ace of Spades HQ has a great essay about double standards. It's one of those things where you read it and give yourself the old V-8 cranial percussion move along with a "Well, duh. Why didn't I say that?" It's just so obvious once it's been pointed out and Ace points it out perfectly. Here's a teaser:

1) In the beginning, the double-standard exists, but those who practice it are not really aware of it. People are always much more sensitive to unfairness towards they themselves than unfairness to other people. Those who practice double-standards initially are unconscious of them, as the unfairness falls to groups they are unsympathetic to.

2) After some time, the existence of the double-standard is brought to their attention. They ignore the charge, chielfly because the beneficiaries of the double-standard are groups or people they're sympathetic to, and those injured by the double-standard are people or groups they're hostile to. In their minds, no harm, no foul.

3) At some point, the existence of the double-standard is well-documented enough, and complained about loudly enough, that they can no longer simply ignore it. At this point, the practitioners of the double-standards simply begin lying. They claim there is no double-standard at all.

This, of course, is where most of the liberal media is right now, and in fact has been for 20 or 30 years.

4) Finally, the existence of the double-standard can no longer be denied with a straight face. At this point, rather than strive for fairness and the abolition of the double-standard, the proponents of the double-standard simply begin inventing reasons as to why the double-standard is necessary and justified and right.

Much more good stuff in the full article.

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Lemur Girl won the first immunity challenge in Blogosphere Survivor, part Deux. She can now rest easy as she can't be evicted this week. Then again, everybody except Jeff can probably rest easy this week as I can't imagine anybody else getting whacked.

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Found this nifty little questionairre over at LeeAnn's place.

Answer the following questions in the comments:

1. Who are you?

2. Have we ever met?

3. Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it.

4. Describe me in one word.

5. What reminds you of me?

6. If you could give me anything, what would it be?

7. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?

8. Are you going to put this on your weblog and see what I say about you?

9. What do you love like a fat kid loves cake?

10. What makes you come back here?

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1 1) I am Helen. Well, not really, but you can call me that. 2) Nope, but I am waiting for you and your family to remedy that. 3) I generally have to meet people to give them nicknames, but you'll always be the Blog Pimp Daddy to me. 4) Friend. Really, doesn't that encompass it all? 5) Cows. Seriously. Sorry, it had to be said. 6) a cool job with a massive travel account and all the computer toys you could want. 7) Yeah, sometimes you get scarily conservative but I know you really have a desire to run around, naked as a liberal. Maybe, or otherwise maybe you reply to me in an email if you're bored. But maybe. 9) Artichokes and orgasms. Not together, but you get my drift. 10) You make me laugh.

Posted by: Helen at June 08, 2004 09:49 AM (TmM0X)

2 1. The Cheesemistress of Chaos 2. Nope, I'm over here and you're over there. 3. Napboy 4. antidisappointment 5. clocks 6. a book contract 7. nope 8. been there, done that, film at eleven 9. running around in my jammies, cheese, and GM1 10. need for inspiration at the genetic level

Posted by: LeeAnn at June 08, 2004 12:07 PM (HxCeX)

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The entries for Survivor Immunity Challenge #1 has been posted. Get on over there and vote for the best one.

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