Caught by Josh Marshall at TPM, a great backstage moment between Stephen Colbert and John Kerry. First time I've ever seen Colbert out of character. Does he do this with everyone? Making sure they are in on the joke?
my 8 yr old likes to play with her breakfast
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who died in 2006, was arguably Indonesia's greatest writer and one of the world's most engaging novelists. I don't feel like I am reading his works as much as wrapping myself in them. I named one of my children after a character in Bumi Manusia (This Earth of Mankind).
Following the 1965 coup that saw Suharto take power, Pram was imprisoned for decades, much of that time on Buru Island.
Exile is an account of conversations with Pram not long before his death. The topics run from politics to literature to Indonesian and Javanese culture.
Pram's pain and disappointment at the course of Indonesia's development is obvious in his cutting reflections on culture, government corruption, and the dominance of the US. He rightly lays a great deal of blame for Indonesia's ills on the Suharto regime – understandable given the years of imprisonment he suffered at Suharto's hands, as well as the very real corruption and misgovernance that characterized the New Order, particularly in the final few years.
I found his reflections on culture and his view that the Javanese propensity to submit to authority figures shackles Indonesia's development fascinating. He is clearly a fan of Sukarno – time and distance allow him to ignore or gloss over Sukarno's profound failings in the later years of his presidency. All was well, in Pram's view, before the coup, and if Sukarno had been allowed to continue Indonesia would have proceeded to a bright future.
Exile is a valuable complement to his other published works. It's not as compelling as the Mute's Soliloquy, his account of imprisonment on Buru and elsewhere, and these conversations sadly reveal far more unhappiness and far less hope about his homeland than I expected. For all the faults he describes, Indonesia has made a relatively peaceful transition from authoritarian rule to democracy, vacated East Timor, and avoided the large scale sectarian bloodbaths that have claimed other nations at a similar stage of development. Terrorism seems to have been brought to heel and the world's largest muslim nation remains a reliable U.S. partner. Civil society continues to roll, sometimes lurch, along and renew with every turn of the monsoon. I guess Pram remained an exile until the end.
Is today. Lots of relevant links at Blogfish's Carnival of the Blue. Also there is DFO's page, the Suzuki Foundation, and the Vancouver Aquarium (who are celebrating the week).
Get wet.
Last weekend we were treated to an unusual wildlife encounter. A colony of bees, likely in the process of locating and founding a new hive, settled in our garden on Saturday afternoon. 
After trying out a branch in our plum tree, they dropped to the ground and settled for the next 24 hours or so. Individual bees, perhaps scouts, shuttled in and out of the cluster until sunset and then again throughout Sunday morning. Finally on Sunday evening they rose in one great cloud (well, they did leave some stragglers) and made their way to Pacific Spirit Park. 
It's great to see honey bees around and, it seems, in good health.
Jennifer Gardy notes the seeming disparity between the apparent mortality rates in Mexico and the U.S. / Canada. Since she posted this, a comparative analysis of the genomes indicates that the strains in Mexico and Canada are identical. So why the Mexican deaths?
I would also speculate that the number of deaths in Mexico could be the numerator over a very large denominator. That is, the number of low level swine flu infections could be quite large among the Mexican population, but underreported due to poor access to health care and other confounding issues like the prevalence of other infectious diseases, with similar symptoms, among the poor. In populations wracked with chronic respiratory and gastrointestinal infection, would low to moderate swine flu infections be distinguishable? In that context, the actual mortality rate might be much lower than media reports.
Other good stuff in her post about tracking the outbreak by following money, and the sequencing efforts.
I don't typically read management / self help literature. The few times I've tried I tune out in Chapter 1, usually after the first venn diagram or matrix or list of x ways to do y. Despite these past failures, on the recommendation of a colleague I waded into The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, by Patrick Lencioni. Well written, slim, and brisk, it focuses on the simple fact that in organizations, teamwork matters. 
A talented, supportive, and accountable team offers a company a formidable competitve advantage, while companies can fly apart if dysfunctional team dynamics are allowed to take hold. Without retelling the entire book, the interesting bit for me was the discussion of trust and conflict. Conflict in a team can be healthy and is an indicator of trust among colleagues. This resonated with me. The most effective groups I have worked with interact with candor and transparency. While consensus is rarely acheived, the airing of differences and working through to resolution binds team members and promotes buy-in for even the toughest decisions. While it can be challenging to manage constructive conflict, the alternative – silent disengagement – is far worse.
Ontario to award $100M for genomics research.
Great news for genomics research in Ontario. I assume this will go through OGI. This will hopefully lessen the temptation for Canadian based scientists to head south to a US that is once again science friendly. I think Canada and other countries have benefited scientifically from the Bush years, and we need to work to keep our best and brightest, as well as the 'exiles', in place.
Forget natural selection. It’s all about the next pint.
via Andrew Sullivan, flu hysteria in the 100-acre wood 
iBiome 