While it's long been a popular move by individuals and corporations seeking an edge in today's Internet-aware economy to grab domain names that might be accessed by individuals who either mistype a URL or aren't aware of the proper URL (example: www.whitehouse.com is a porn site while www.whitehouse.gov is the legitimate home page of the United States White House) in an attempt to gain exposure or business, it hasn't been up until now that this tactic has been used in addition to loading the website in such a way that search engines such as Google will return them as the most likely hit and appear as if it was the genuine article.

In light of the recent debate in regards to the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, some folks might be interested in learning more about this national treasure. With the popularity of Google these days, some people might be intrigued to find that the first hit when searching Google for "ANWR" takes them to a site that advocates the proposal to drill for oil within the site. Intrigued? So was I.

The Museum of Cartoon Art has been reduced to just a one-room exhibit and, $2 million in debt, is likely to soon have its contents sold off to Yale.

Story here

Two Men were freed from jail after torturing and killing a cat, under the grounds of it being "performance art"

Story here

The SciFi Channel has recently announced that it will do a remake of the TV series 'Battlestar Galactica', to be headed by Ronald Moore ('Roswell', 'Mission: Impossible 2'). This news has been met with surprise and dismay by 'X-Men' producer Tom DeSanto, who had spent last year developping a 'Galactica' project of his own with Vivendi/Universal, and by the fans of the show, who were looking forward to DeSanto's project.
The fans have started online petitions as a protest for this turn of events.

(Posted from CFStaff forum. Original message by David Bliss on 4/16/2002)

Are you planning to come to ConFurence 2002 armed with a video camera? I am again attempting to coordinate video taping for the official highlights tape.

As I am also running a dealers table there is only so much I can cover myself. Not to mention there will be up to five tracks of programming running at any one time. It would be nice to know that others are covering important events such as Meet the Guests and the Artist Jam.

If you just want to wander around grabbing shots of whatever catches your eye that is fine too. But please give me a chance to copy your tapes either at the con (there will be equipment on site) or afterwards.

SciFi Wire is reporting that the 2001 have been announced. The Hugo winners are chosen each year by the attendees of the World Science Fiction Convention, this year known as ConJose. Notable this year is the special catagory of Best Website, which has not been offered before. More information can be found here

It's never too early to register for a con. Especially when it's the best little convention in the Pacific Northwest: Conifur! Send in your registration now and get the low membership rate of $25. Just be sure that you send that registration to our new address: Conifur Northwest, 1911 SW Campus Drive, PMB 380, Federal Way, WA 98023.

An urgent email went out today to Rabbit Valley Books customers regarding Jim Hardiman's medical emergency: complications surrounding his diabetes are causing problems that, without surgery, threaten blindness. Instructions on how to help follow...

According to this article at MSNBC, the Senate shot down the plan to drill for oil in the Alaska Arctic Wildlife Refuge. However, there is still potential life for it as it is a very large part of the energy bill passed by the House -- so the battle isn't over yet. My recommendation is to continue to write your representatives and let them know where you stand on this issue!

The new 'Lilo & Stitch' trailer from Disney is available. The style of classic film ripoffs continues in this preview with a movie many of you will be *quite* familiar with...

http://64.79.162.213/encodethis/bvim_lilo_stitch_trailer6_1500.mov

You think wearing a costume is hot for a few hours at a convention? Try running a 140 mile long desert marathon in one. Since they went to all this trouble, please consider helping Save the Rhino.

The National Network unveiled plans for an adult cartoon block to compete with Cartoon Network's 'Adult Swim' starting in 2003. Cartoons featured will include 'Gary The Rat' and new 'Ren and Stimpy' episodes.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020416/nytu132_1.html

As part of our programming for ConFurence 2002, we will be hosting a 'Tribute Room' for folks within and around Furry Fandom who have left us since last year's convention, and for that, we would like to make a request:

If folks who're coming to the convention (or live near it) have material of an interest to the folks we're remembering, we'd like to borrow it for our display.

Do you have books, pictures, tapes, or other materials relating to (in no particular order):

*Chuck Jones
*William Hanna
*Maurice Noble
*Poul Anderson
*Gordon R. Dickson
*Tove Jansson [Creator of the Moomin Trolls]
*Eve Titus [Creator of Basil of Baker Street]

If you do, could we make use of it?

[more...]

The assistance dog of a disabled man visiting the library was attacked by a cat who was the unofficial mascot of the library. Now the man is suing the library, calling the attack a "hate crmie".

Click here for story.

Damon Knight, SF Grand Master, died yesterday in a hospital in Eugene, Oregon. Among his many accomplishments, Knight wrote "To Serve Man" (the short story immortalized by the Twilight Zone episode), started the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Association, and wrote a book about writing that still sits on my shelf today, Creating Short Fiction.