Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Connecticut, 1665:

[A] solemne day of Thanksgiving to be kept throwout this Colony on the last Wednesday of November, to returne praise to God for his great mercy to us in the continuation of our liberties and priviledges both Civill and Ecclesiastick; and for our peace and preventing those troubles that we feard by forreigne enemies; and for the blessings in the fruits of the earth and the generall health in the plantations.
   --J. Hammond Trumbull, Ed., The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut from 1665 to 1678, P.A. Brown, Hartford, 1852, page 26.

Oklahoma, 2009: The blessings continue.

The Queen's Government proves itself utterly clueless

The Government of the U.K. has released details of the proposal known as the Digital Economy Bill. The bill contains a number of proposals involving the maintenance and upgrade of the UK's national digital computer network. Lurking among other proposals that might be reasonable is, however, is the following clunker:

creating a robust legal and regulatory framework to combat illegal file sharing and other forms of online copyright infringement and give Ofcom a specific new responsibility to significantly reduce this practice, including two specific obligations on Internet Service Providers: the notification of unlawful activity and, for alleged serial-infringers, collation of data to allow rights holders to obtain court orders to force the release of personal details, enabling legal action to be taken against them;

As discussed here, this will require internet service providers to serve as the entertainment syndicates' private copyright cops. Lousy public policy all around.

Ph34r t3h cute ones (fear the cute ones)

Don't these dancers look dangerous as they wade through water and rain in warriors' weeds?