So there won't be much blogging until I get back on Sunday. Now, this is a Grand Nerdmoot (a big grown-up academic conference) instead of just a normal Nerdmoot (departmental-type meetings, seminars, grad student conferences, and such). Grand Nerdmo

NO LIE. I cannot make some of this crazy stuff up!But MSNBC reports that Japan held a funeral and eulogized the chickens killed there as a precaution against bird flu. The headline? "Japan mourns victims of bird flu scare."On a stage, piled

(No, I didn't come up with "glocally," though I wish I had. Durian Nation my fellow Taiwan blogger deserves the credit!)Anyway, this news is a couple days late (April 22), but it's the best I can do, since obviously I'm not physically on m

No, I'm not making this one up either! It's been all over the news lately -- even on the BBC. Here's the blurb:A student in the US has been given free accommodation after it was found he had been sleeping in the college library for eight months to sa

So now we've all got something to look forward to!The Taiwan High Court has just set the date.Not that it matters to some folks. There are young folks in the KMT who are telling their leaders to wake up and smell the defeat: "Face it, we've lost

It's a really, and I do mean REALLY, busy time at Cloudcuckooland. It's coming up on the end of the semester, so folks are rushing madly to get everything done, and I'm right there with 'em! I've a dissertation proposal due in 2 weeks, a conference p

Here's something fun that I ran across today! If Kerry's camp can claim Heinz ketchup, then what's left for the Bush camp? Why, Bush Country Ketchup, of course! FYI, if you go to the Heinz website, there's a link to an official company statement that

Right on the heels of Anzac Day, here comes this wild tale from Down Under!"Aussie Olive Oil  a Splash in Italy"Boundary Bend Estate, Australia's biggest producing olive grove, has begun harvesting a 4000-tonne crop, which is expected to y

Anzac Day is an Australian and New Zealander holiday, FYI. It's a lot like Memorial Day here, state-side.AND, Aussie prime minster John Howard has made a surprise visit to Baghdad to spend the day with the Aussie troops there. Good on him!Prime Minis

I much prefer the pandas! But politics first. ~Chan and Soong Aren't Getting Any More PopularCrazy stuff too, as former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui blasts Chan and Soong. And does so in no uncertain terms. As the host of a seminar held by Taiwa

'Nuff said! And check out the many shades of early spring green, plus the blue ribbon of the Delaware River. (Can't wait to see the same panorama in autumn's leaf season.) 

The Chronicle of Higher Education actually has an interesting article this time around. It talks about how unmarried professors get discriminated against in favor of married ones. Since soon (well, if I ever finish my dissertation -- a big IF!) I'll

Whoops! Forgot to mention Earth Day yesterday while I was rushing around. A dear friend -- from halfway across the world, no less! -- reminded me. So here's the official Earth Day 2004 website. And the website for coordinating Earth Day activities!No

Well, the interview with Nerd Hell Incorporated was over a week ago (I thought it went OK), and the hiring managers have just emailed me to say that it was nice to meet me and could I send them my references. So I'm hoping this means I might be offer

Of course it's not official or anything! It turned out to be just one annoyed government official's opinion -- after Chan called the Taiwanese elections "the biggest joke in the world." Hey, shades of Ditzy Dixie Chicks!Still, I think that

Today's the ancient Roman festival of the Parilia. It's the birthday of Rome, which, according to tradition, was founded on April 21, 753 BC.Happy Birthday to the Eternal City -- and many happy returns!The Romans, by the way, have been celebrating si

Nothing that huge to report for now from the election recount mess -- I suppose both the blues and greens are letting their respective lawyers have at each other! There are 700 of them, after all! And the recount won't happen until May, so we're all

Y'all Texans will appreciate this! Yesterday it was 86 degrees up here! That's way hotter than it should be -- it was a slice of Texas springtime!Plus, a dear friend was running the Boston Marathon yesterday in this wacky weather. The heat slowed her

You know, usually I don't really care about polls. Plus it's only APRIL, so obsessing about polls now -- some 6 months before the presidential election -- is just premature. (Besides, I have a dissertation to obsess over. Not that I'm doing THAT, eit

Kerry over Bush. Well, THAT wasn't a shocker, was it? But what might be more interesting is this, if you actually look at the numbers:Out of 1205 undergraduates polled, 48%of the students favored Kerry and 38% preferred Bush. That means 14% are prett

You have to believe me when I tell you that I had no idea Salvador Dali ever painted a thing he called "Minerva Loca Loca Loca" (in English, "Mad Mad Mad Minerva"). But apparently the guy (sorry, I'm not a big Dali fan) did this i

Not even pretending now about the June 30 "deadline," Zapatero (just sworn in, too) orders the Spanish troops out as soon as possible. They may be out within 15 days. Why do I suddenly think of "Brave Sir Robin" of "Month Pyt

I first got a hold of this article from Tim Blair's Aussie blog, since the article came out in an Aussie paper. Peter Singer is famous -- or better, infamous -- in all sorts of circles, especially academic. He's a faculty member at Cloudcuckooland Pr

"Live from Taipei...It's Saturday Protest!" Or not. There was a protest yesterday as usual, but it was a pretty puny and pathetic affair. Check out the numbers as reported by Taipei Times:A few hundred opposition protesters gathered yesterd

Here's a blurb for you:VP Cheney's on an Asian trip, and he's met with Beijing while he's doing it. Predictably, the mainland government demanded that the US stop selling arms to Taiwan....and stop adhering to the Taiwan Relations Act too. But, Chene