So, did you read the 5000 page Guantanamo report? That's OK, it would be unrealistic to expect you to, which is part of the reasoning behind Captain Ed's rallying a blogstorm to read it in pieces and double check some of what's being reported.

Speaking of rallying the power of his readers, Josh Marshall is asking readers to relay instances of local news reporting on uniformed military at political events.

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And the blogger at A Soldier's Perspective is also calling for the help of readers and fellow bloggers. The cause in this case is to offer support and respectful condolences to a family who lost a son to the war in Iraq. The family has been harassed, apparently by the followers of Fred Phelps (described here recently as America's most despicable human).

New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro is being scooped by bloggers on his own story. Apparently he's working on a piece about Wal-Mart writing directly to supportive bloggers with more pro-Wal-Mart tid bits and stories, so he's contacting some of the bloggers on Wal-Mart's mailing list. One of the bloggers in question pre-empts the Times article with transparency of what Wal-Mart has been sending. It's an interesting tactic by Wal-Mart. I wonder how many other companies do the same. I get occasional mail from Firefox and the odd book publicist.

Bloggers who believe that negotiating nuclear matters with other countries is a waste of time are finding validation in an article about an Iranian nuclear negotiator's claim that talks where a stall tactic while work on the Iranian nuclear program continued. The source for this is unclear, but it does mention, "The contents of the speech were published in a regime journal that circulates among the ruling elite."

Red rain could prove that aliens have landed — Well, that depends on how you define "aliens." One theory is that a comet dropped some organic material. The red rain part is true though.

It seems like everyone tonight is linking to some version of Natalie Portman's performance of a coarse rap parody on Saturday Night Live yesterday (basically safe for work, but you probably wouldn't want to hear your kid singing along). Since NBC just finished making YouTube take down the last video they turned into a smash viral hit, I don't know how long this link will stay alive. But since SNL didn't bother to put it up on their own site, the link goes to YouTube by virtue of the "you snooze you lose" rule.

Next hugest viral video of the day is the real life version of the Simpsons opening. As this article explains (remember, Page 3=NSFW), it's from the actual Simpsons people. Marge needs bigger hair, but otherwise, it's pretty amazing. The band director is spot on. (Speaking of the Simpsons, I wish I'd known about this site when I was writing about math on TV the other day.)

But I'm going to have to say the Video of the Day is the robotic pack mule. Not only does it look somehow like a really eerie Halloween costume, but I swear I felt a flash of outrage when the guy kicked it. UPDATE: Lots of links at Sploid.

Speaking of robot animal servants, Fido Luggage wheels itself at your heels so you don't have to drag it around.

Top ten power ballads from Stylus Magazine. I don't agree with any of these, but that's what makes it a fun starting point for debate.

Top ten strangest Lego creations

Top ten ways to find great photos of Flickr

Art Buchwald, facing regular dialysis treatments, opts for a natural death.

"StationRipper can record Shoutcast radio broadcasts, saving each song as an individual MP3 file (naming it with the band name and song name). Broadband connections can download 3k+ songs a day." I've not tried this, so caveat downloader, but wow, cool.

How to be an expert — I feel like we've clicked elements of this before, but they're brought together well here. The short version is that practice is not a matter of repetition but of mastery and furthermore, it's never too late to master new things.

Joking about bombs is never a good idea. Even before 9/11 it wasn't a good idea. Part of my family lore includes a story of my grandfather joking in an airport about having a bomb in a birthday cake he was carrying. They grabbed him, destroyed the cake, interrogated him, he missed his plane, etc. Anyway, back to present day, if you like a band named "This Bike is a Pipe Bomb," don't put their sticker on your bike.

Roots of altruism show in babies’ helping hands; Toddlers eager to help out, even with no prospect of reward — Tsk, and you thought human nature was all machine guns and bikinis.

Senator wants to ban 'fast lane' on the Web — This is a twist in the ongoing "net neutrality" issue. I didn't realize it was possible, but I guess we need a law to make sure Internet providers don't play favorites with bandwidth capacity.

Homemade LED flashlights from PVC plumbing parts — From scratch, so that includes a bit on how to do resistor math.

Dear Michael Brown, I was wrong — In case there was any question after last week's re-fuss, Michael Brown's self defense appears to have worked well for him. (And he reads blogs [scroll down].)

"Military scientists in the United States are developing a way of manipulating sharks by remote control to turn them into underwater spies or weapons." The source is this lengthy New Scientist piece.

"Virtual China is an exploration of virtual experiences and environments in and about China." We spend so much time paying attention to what Web surfers in China aren't allowed to click that we seldom learn about what they do click. This is a fascinating blog.

Independent reporter Michael Totten is still in Iraqi Kurdistan. In this installment he visits the genocide museum there.

Bill Cosby is threatening to sue Waxy.org for hosting the "House of Cosbys" parody video. He may have picked the wrong blogger to try to chill.

• March 3, 2006 | 8:46 PM ET

I nearly fell out of my chair when I read one of the leading blog entries of the past few days. It is instructions on how to perform an abortion. The context is that women in South Dakota, where abortions are banned, will need to perform them themselves. Of course it makes sense that something like this would come up in the information age. The Internet is the new back alley. (This should go without saying, but as a rule, it's crazy to follow medical advice from a blog. And if you're wondering where the link is for this item, after discussing it with my editor, I decided to leave it as a look-it-up-yourself item. While I do think this will be a huge story when word of it spreads, it feels wrong to link to instructions for performing a medical procedure as casually as I do instructions on making a hoverboard from a leaf blower. This is the balance I've struck between my goal to inform and my duty to link responsibly.)

Speaking of changing times, Generation M — This blogger ponders the way each generation becomes more dependent on mobile technology and what that means for future generations.

Speaking of new generations leaving older generations befuddled, will the standard sexual orientations of straight/gay (and sometimes "bi") give way to a graduated scale of gayness vs. straightness? Will kids come home from school and say, "Hey mom, I got a 2 on my sexual orientation test."? Sheesh!

Oh! The scandal! Hermione with a beer. Though some are expressing outrage about drinking age and setting examples, etc, it looks to me like she's just playing around, not actually drinking it. Hermione remains my favorite character, regardless.

Speaking of corrupted youth and overreaction, The MySpace monster — The frenzy over kids on MySpace posting too much personal information and being preyed upon by creeps and pedophiles has crossed the line from due caution to dangerous hysteria. Yes, it's necessary to pay attention to what your kids are doing online, no, MySpace is not a crack house, it is possible to use it and not end up abducted or molested.

Of course, the MySpace video service has only just started...

From said service, a Video of the Day candidate: Rock diving

Remember that video of the kids driving 55 mph to prove how foolish the speed limit is? Turns out they were breaking quite a few laws they weren't aware of.

I'm putting a transfer in right now so hopefully I can be sent to cover the 2014 Winter Olympics on Hoth. It looks like they're soliciting contributions to the idea, so this might be worth a check back later to see what they've added.

In case you've wondered if Arab media ever entertains a view critical of Islamic radicals, this video answers the question. Obviously it's been edited, but I still thought it was remarkable to see on al Jazeera. (Subtitled, no need for sound.)

China to launch alternate Internet — The ostensible explanation is that the new Internet would allow domains with Chinese character names. Not mentioned in this Slashdot blurb but pretty obvious is that Chinese censors will probably be better able to operate if they run their own Internet. Politics aside, I have every expectation that one day we'll be specifying which Web we were on when we share links we clicked. UPDATE: After reading through the links in this item, I feel like I should be more clear. China is creating a new root system so sites can have Chinese names. The "two Internets" idea comes in when/if sites in the Chinese system duplicate the names in the American system. There could be two Google.coms and your ISP (I think) would have to decide which one you see when you type that address into your browser.

Speaking of Web censorship, the Global Voices mailing list has been on fire with the news that blogspot blogs are being blocked at the request of the Pakistani government. Initially the suspicion was that it had something to do with the arrival of President Bush, but it has now been determined that it's tied to the Mohammad cartoons. Bloggers aren't pleased.

(By the way, I've been meaning to mention that the Iraq blog roundup there is quite good.)

"Blogs are like hammers. They are tools for building stuff." This is a short entry but does a good job making the point that blogs are a means, not an end.

Speaking of making good use of blogs, Jay Rosen and his students have released their report on the best blogging newspapers.

Latest Iraqi war casualty -- conservative belief in "personal responsibility" — Glenn Greenwald has been drawing a lot of links lately as an anti-Bush conservative. His breakout post charged Bush followers with abandoning reason for blind support of the president. (An ironic contrast to the charge that many liberals have abandoned reason for blind hatred of the president.) He is a rare example of someone who has made a significant jump to blog prominence in a relatively short time.

You may not recognize the name Farnaz Fassihi, but you've likely heard the accusation that American reporters are covering the Iraq War by looking out the window of their hotel rooms. It was her e-mail complaining about Iraq being too dangerous to cover that sparked a still-running discussion of war coverage. Here she is interviewed briefly on New York City public radio.

The belted sweater on Knitty is proving popular.

I'm not much of a sports buff, so maybe this is common knowledge, but Utah Jazz basketball player, Andrei Kirilenko, is allowed one act of infidelity per year by his wife. Her reasoning is that forbidding sex with other women makes him more likely to want it.

This alarm clock wakes you up by firing puzzle pieces in the air and the only way to turn it off is to solve the puzzle. It's only 4 pieces, but still a good way to kick-start the brain.

GirlHacker compiles a list of what's in the Official Academy Awards Gift Bag.

"Lunar power" comes to New York — My first thought was that this was about moonlight, but really it's about tides. As the tide goes in and out it turns turbines underwater. There's a note that this is safe for fish. I'm not sure why it's not dangerous for fish the same way wind turbines are dangerous for birds.

Commuter Click: Malcolm Gladwell answers e-mail questions from a friend. This is an ESPN link so it has strong sports themes, but I read the first part and his answers are still fun to read. Part 1. Part 2.

An E.M.T working for the London Ambulance Service explains why the blanket is one of his most valuable tools.

"One of the projects I’ve been engaged in lately is trying to catch players who are cheating in online poker." The post itself is pretty thin. The comments section is the meat of the conversation.

What is the Bank Privacy Act and does it really mean Homeland Security has to be notified if you make an unusually large credit card payment? I tried looking this one up myself and didn't have much luck. I think the Bank Privacy Act pre-dates all the security hype, so if there's a law that makes this story true, it's probably something recent, like the Patriot Act. I'm more inclined to believe that it was the bank dragging its feet. I wonder how often "homeland security" is used by companies as an excuse for something else.

Speaking of trying to find documents, LifeHacker has a nice list of libraries and other databases.

The laziest spammers ever. Which isn't to say there isn't someone out there who might fall for it.

Just Show Me How To... is a camera tutorial site that charges small amounts for little lessons in how to work your camera and take better pictures. On this particular topic there is a ton of free information online, so I don't know how well this will do as a business, but the idea of paying a dollar or two for a quick lesson in something seems like a good idea. Especially if the information is useful.

People often write asking for an RSS feed for Clicked that doesn't involve all the other MSNBC.com blogs. I don't have that right now, but there are sites that could be a solution. Feed 43 creates a feed for sites that don't have one. And Feed Whip will simply e-mail you when a site you follow has been updated. Maybe people expect RSS aggregation to be worked into e-mail programs like Outlook eventually, so it's funny that Feed Whip isn't bothering to wait for that.

Librario is a tool for cataloguing your media collection. Naturally, once you have a lot of people on the same site with lists, they can compare those lists and put you in touch with people who share your tastes.

Speaking of social software for shared tastes, here's Coastr, the social guide to beer. the idea is that your list of favorite beers might be similar to someone else's and they may have some recommendations you haven't tried. Also includes beer drinking places. (Still a little too new.)

Video of the Day: Toy Story/Requiem for a Dream mashup. NOTE: Some cursing out loud. You'll recall that was a pretty hardcore movie.

This domino tomato mushing game requires a certain intuition that I lack.

I found out that Penn Jillette has a radio show and while listening to him bash that Chris Bliss juggling video from yesterday (it's the show called "World Peace through a Bra") he recommends a guy named Jason Garfield as quality juggling performer. I checked out the 2004 World Juggling Federation Ball Competition Champion clip. Did you know juggling is a sport? Like with scoring and everything?

It's the time of year when music festival sites start popping up. Metallica in Tokyo sounds cool.

Brokeback bunnies, the movie in 30 seconds (note, this kind of has spoilers).

• March 2, 2006 | 11:08 AM ET

Every once in a while, when the subject comes up, I try to persuade the TV folks that news should be educational and that expertise is compelling in and of itself. The prevailing mindset is that narrative is what's most compelling to audiences and news should be told as a story. They've been doing this for a long time and they know what works, but I still insist that people who know what they're talking about are fun to listen to. I watch the truck guy on Saturday mornings and I don't own a truck, never did, probably never will. But that guy really knows trucks.

I bring all of this up as explanation for why I sometimes link to things that exceed my understanding... like the next two items.

18th-century theory is new force in computing — The "Bayes for dummies" was a little easier for me to digest. It's straight out of a NUMBERS script. (You watch that show, right? I've been thinking of calling CBS to see if their math consultant will do an interview. I mean seriously, has there ever been a show with math as the hero?) UPDATE: OK, since I got burned when I said the genetic Chimera lady could be a crime plot device and it turned out CSI already did it, I went and looked this one up myself. Sure enough, the second to last one on this list says "Topic: Conditional Probability Leading to Bayesian Filtering."

Speaking of fooling myself into thinking I understand something very complicated, how impressive sounding is "counterfactual quantum computing?" There's been an article going around called "Quantum computer solves problem, without running." This blogger picks it apart and offers a simpler explanation. In the comments, the blogger and his readers are critical of how the story is reported and talk about the challenge of explaining theoretical math to non-math people.

Respected polling blogger The Mystery Pollster discusses the methodology behind the new Zogby poll of U.S. troops in Iraq. "Almost 90% think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11" (?)

Speaking of polls, here's a state by state breakdown of whether Americans feel the NSA wiretapping was (is) legal or illegal. If you click the state name it gives you further breakdown.

Democrats vow not to give up hopelessness — Though the president's poor poll numbers are making this increasingly challenging.

MilTracker — Your daily source for good news about the military. This site needs to advertise itself because we get a lot of mail from people who are sick of hearing bad news.

This is the toy of the day to be sure. Imagine mixing A9 with satellite maps and you get a cool new version of Microsoft's mapping program in which you "drive" or "walk" at street level. So far it's only Seattle and San Francisco, but even with my passing familiarity with Seattle this was fun to play with. Once they get it to work more quickly or turn it into a Google Earth-type desktop download, it'll be killer.

Dooce celebrates 5 years of blogging and ends up leading a discussion of working motherhood versus stay-at-home motherhood.

It took me a little time to figure out why people were linking to Polinaut. Scrolling a bit I find the story begins here, with the juicier bit here. While this is couched in political terms, really it's a security threat to be aware of regardless of the actual subject matter. You might not make the connection that by playing a CD in your machine you're transmitting information in a way that may not be secure. I don't want to sound paranoid, but beware the free CD.

Helicopter robot armed with a shotgun — Long version. Find Sarah Connor (yes, that is my new favorite expression).

I haven't been following Windows Vista developments very closely. I think the most recent forecast for a release date is around Thanksgiving this year and I read that there will be six versions of it. Today I watched the demo of the voice recognition it comes with. It looks a little slow, but wow are we close to touching our comlinks and shouting "Computer" into the air.

"If he’s lucky, self-taught Mexican rocket scientist Juan Manuel Lozano will someday become one of just a handful of people in history to make an untethered flight with a rocket belt."

How to save a snowflake for decades — Short version: Use a cold microscope slide and runny superglue.

FeedBlendr combines RSS feeds into a single feed.

I don't think juggle dancing is going to be catching on any time soon (I hope). UPDATE: Some folks are reporting an error on this link. I found it in the MSN player here. Maybe this is the correct way to link to it? Anyway, the guy's name is Chris Bliss. Looks like he's got a pretty big following.

Speaking of performances that make you cringe, skating cowboys. (This is surely pre-Brokeback Mountain.)

Speaking of ice dancing and sleeveless cowboys holding hands, journalists should ask celebs about their sexual orientation — Links to this larger argument. Part of the accusation here is that members of the media are protecting newsmakers from having to admit their gayness by not asking the question in the first place. Instead, they use coded terms like "flamboyant." I think it's more a matter of relevance. A celebrity journalist writing about Johnny Weir's personal life should not (and would not, I believe) feel awkward asking if and who he's dating and what he likes in a mate. A sports writer describing his skating style should stick to those descriptive words because ultimately they have nothing to do who he likes to have sex with. For a sports writer to say, "He's gay and you can tell by how he skates" is just plain offensive.

Encyclopodia — Download Wikipedia to your iPod.

It's been a while since I clicked a Carnival of Recipes.

Don't forget Dr. Who starts (here in the U.S.) on St. Patrick's Day.

Ultra efficient car — 157 mpg sounds nice, and so does the $14,000 price tag, but a 20 hp 2 cylinder engine? Why not just bolt a bicycle chassis under there?

The Splasho Superbrowser — One of the things that distinguishes the Firefox browser from Internet Explorer and others is that independent programmers are able to write their own little add-on features called "extensions." There are over a thousand extensions available, each with its own toolbar button or right-click option. This blogger added the most popular 100 of them to his browser with somewhat extreme results.

Scuba-Doo — Underwater motorcycle.

Why doesn't this link to the Village Voice cover story work? Oh, the reporter lied.

This is probably too long to call it the Video of the Day, but it's worth watching just a bit of it so you know what all the fuss is about. I've clicked passing mentions of a new video game called Spore and the acclaim it's receiving as being utterly revolutionary, but this is the first time I've seen it demonstrated. Basically it's an evolution game. Buzzword to learn: "procedurally generated."

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