Monday Roundup

ARMED DOLPHINS ON THE LOOSE?
Some of the Navy's armed dolphins, trained to shoot darts at terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may have escaped during Hurricane Katrina and may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico. Divers and surfers could be at risk.

Other than the usual questions regarding the use of dolphins for such purposes, I want to know why dolphins would have been "armed" when they weren't on duty or in a training exercise. There are a lot of things in this story which don't add up.


PLAIN TALKING COPS
The federal government is mandating that emergency agencies abandon their radio-codes and adopt a common plain language.

My father was in law enforcement and as a young teen I kept a police scanner going 24-7 in my bedroom -- listening for his voice. So I became pretty familiar with the code system they used in most of California -- 10-4, code 3, code 4, 211 in progress. That knowledge came in handy when I was older and selling fire and auto crash pictures to the San Jose Mercury. (Now known as the San Jose Mercury News -- which BTW announced last week that it is reducing its news staff by 52 people! I suppose they are still trying to keep up with the SF Chronicle -- which is reducing staff by 120 people.)

But that era of police and fire radio is pretty much gone anyway. Most dispatching and a lot of communication is done through the computer systems in the vehicles. So I guess it's 10-7 for the codebook.


GOOGLE AS CALCULATOR
I discovered a few days ago what perhaps most of you probably already know -- if you type a mathematical problem into a Google search field it performs the calculation. And I was trying to do everything in my head!


TRUSTWATCH
This morning GeoTrust launched a new search engine designed to verify the legitimacy of websites. For example, you see an ad for a product and you want to buy online. But you've never heard of the company and you're not sure whether you want to give them your credit card numbers. You can type the name of the company into the TrustWatch engine and it will give you a listing of sites associated with the company along with a little rating icon for each -- green icon = verified, yellow icon = not verified, red icon = warning. This should put a significant damper on phishing -- if people will use some common sense and run a check before making a transaction.


FIRST HAND REPORT
Linda Gilmore is back from her mission of mercy into storm battered Mississippi. She has stories to tell.


JESUS ISN'T COOL
Chanon Ross on re-thinking our approach to youth ministry. Also worth noting in Christian Century is Carol Lytch's article on what teens believe. That should challenge a few common assumptions.


LIVING WITH A CUIJA
Bruce and Katy are working on co-habitating with the gecko that patrols their ceiling looking for bugs. They have also added new pictures. Link


CHURCH OF THE WEEK
Somewhere on my links page I have a list of "favorite churches." This is a collection of church websites -- many of which are off the beaten path -- not necessarily "cool" or edgy -- just faithful people being church in lots of different styles.

I'm thinking that it would be fun to highlight one a week.

This week I have chosen to mention Epworth Chapel on the Green in Boise, Idaho. These guys definitely march to the beat of a different drum (culturally speaking). But they are thoughtful about what they do and are into quality without being overly polished.