Welcome to the Big Apple Blog Festival (BABF), a representative roundup of this week’s posts by NYC bloggers.
The Big Apple Blog Festival likes to go on tour … if you don’t like what we covered here, and if you have a NYC blog or you blog about NYC and would like to host an upcoming BABF, let us know … The next BABF, on February 20, 2006, will be hosted by Harleys, Cars, Girls & Guitars …

DETAILS, DETAILS

• lowercase L risked a run-in with security at the Makor Café … “Excuse me, sir, what are you taking a picture of?” … a ClOSE CAll … a VErY ClOSE CAll …
• copyranter thinks “journalists who use their middle initial in their byline are self-important Dweebs” … what if their name is John Smith? …
  

  PHOTOBLOGS

• untitlednamedotcom has a picture that will warm you … Palms in Winter Garden, Battery Park City …
• WhatISee has a roundup of NYC Photobloggers 6 …
  

  WEATHER

• Exit Zero was Blizzard Blogging and has pics of the snow on Sunday …
• rion.nu also pics … Two Feet of Winter White Covers Manhattan …
• Karlo.org has Bethesda Angel in Snow …
• WhatISee has Night Photos in the Snow … and Sledding in the Blizzard …
  

  FASHION and BEAUTY

• Express Train has a pic of a fashionista in a fur coat waiting for a train … lucky she didn’t run into the all-caps unhinged commenter MEllANY …
• writersbloc does not like stretch jeans: “Stretch jeans, while hugging every curve and boasting closer fit than their all-cotton cousins, hug a little too well. So well that the lack of gym time shows.” …
• Jolie in NYC says “Sephora.com and Drugstore.com are two of my” favorite beauty web sites …
  

  CELEBRITY

• The Dooryard is “not sure if I want to hang around Martha or if I want to be Martha.” …
• My Urban Kvetch, in “An Open Letter to Zach Braff,” writes: “We want to believe that our Hebrew homies will date and marry closer to home, but the reality is that once they move to Hollywood, it’s all over. Music swells, big-screen kiss, interfaith wedding, the end.” …
  

  HISTORY

• jewschool says that “the Islamic problem of the State of Israel are not the ones stated, such as the mistreatment of Palestinians (real and exaggerated) or their national aspirations. It is the awesome theological problem presented by the existence of the State of Israel.” … “For instance, most Jews consider the punishment of amputating a thieves hand under sharia law as an example of how Judaism is superior to Islam. The fact that many Jews do not understand that the Torah’s insistence of an “eye under an eye” to be one of economic compensation instead of the frequent Christian misinterpretation of the Torah demanding physical retribution does not diminish their own belief that in practice, for as long as anyone can remember, Judaism did not and does not advocate a punishment of amputation of limbs, even if they are not aware that according to most interpretations the Torah explicitly outlaws executing such a punishment even to gentiles.” …
  

  POLITICS

• The Dawn Patrol has a “new slogan for the pro-life movement here: ‘Life. Inflict it.’” …
• The Politburo Diktat declares that the War in Iraq “shouldn’t even be called a war, maybe a war-let.” …
• Dave Friedman’s Soul of Wit has another example showing “that politicians love nothing more than cosmetic fixes to intractable problems” …
• The Daily Gotham said about Dick Cheny accidentally shooting a fellow hunter, “Don’t just treat this as a hobby, Dick. Go pro.” …
• Asymmetrical Information declares that budget “deficits are not doing anything bad to the economy now; if they are having any noticeable effect, it is probably keeping the housing bubble from further inflating, which is to my mind a very good thing indeed.” …
• Yet another weird SF fan declares, “You have a right to life if your death can be somehow blamed on capitalism.” …
  

  SINGING, ACTING, DANCING, MUSIC

• A Guy In New York reports that jazz legend “Benny Golson is 77 years old and he is still very good, healthy, full of humor and life!” …
• Night After Night says Wade Schuman is “a musician to be reckoned with. Pulling out a harmonica, Schuman played an unaccompanied solo of stunning imagination and skill. He made the tiny instrument sing and growl; he blew multiphonic lines punctuated by sharp, percussive pops. During one stretch, he created a doppler-like effect; the closest comparison I could make would be a speeding train winding through a hilly countryside, the sound shuttered by trees and swallowed by the occasional tunnel” …
• Harleys, Cars, Girls & Guitars says “If it ain’t the truth, it ain’t the blues” …
• Clareified has her list of “Top 20 Greatest Movies of All Times” … there must be a mistake … I don’t see “Hulot” in any of those titles …
• Liberteaser has a warning for “all you filmmakers out there. If you get a call from ‘Stacy,’ hang up. Quickly. Unless, of course, she’s taken out that personal loan.” …
• Suitably Flip gives “Two idolatrous thumbs up” to Showtime’s Sleeper Cell …
• Ragged Thots explains “why SNL isn’t as funny as it was ‘back in the day.’” …
• listen. says that “the multi-cultural polystylism of Golijov, whose Ayre has received reviews both rapturous and reserved–is not the future. It is a future, one of a thousand stylistic flowers that will bloom.” …
• An Unamplified Voice believes that Placido Domingo’s conducting “of the current Met run of Rigoletto … seems a very, very poor deal indeed for the house, but even worse for its patrons.” …
  

  DOT COMS

• Amy’s New York Notebook reports that Amazon has “more than 1,500” product wikis …
• Dave Friedman’s Soul of Wit and says “Google bulls are partying like it’s 1999” …
  

  OFFENSIVE CARTOONS

• Atlas Shrugs comments on the “offensive cartoons” [Ed., link here], “Most U.S. newspapers have opted not to publish the images. These are the same newspapers that sued the federal government for the right to run the dead floating bodies in the Katrina afternmath. But run the hundeds of bodies hitting the ground after throwing themsleves out of the World Trade Center? Never” … and notes that “Cartoon rioting continues unabated across the world” …
• elvira black declares that “calls to ‘understand’ how ‘deeply offended’ the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed are to Muslims– frankly offends me to the point of fury. The reasons for this are, literally, graphically clear. The source of my rage is not hard to locate–it is readily available on websites which offer up the richly perverted tradition of antisemitic cartoons and televised antisemitic and anti-American propaganda disseminated throughout the Muslim world on a regular basis.” …
• Mister Snitch! looks at “Daniel Schorr’s free speech problem” … we didn’t realize Schnorr is still around … and has a link to the “Anonymous Muslim Man Complaint Box” …
• Brain Terminal declares: “To a frighteningly large number of people on this planet, freedom is the enemy.” …
• The People’s Cube reports that “Western terror labs have finally produced a weapon so horrific that it has shaken Islamic world to the core, making over a billion people from Morocco to Indonesia fear for the survival of their freedoms, morals, beliefs, cultures, governments, and the very life itself.” …
• Alarming News notes the comparison of “the Muslim rioting over a cartoon to Christian anger over the removal of ‘Christmas’ from American life. Gib says it best in Clarified’s comment section: ‘I once called the Danish embassy during December. They said ‘Happy Holidays.’ So I burned it to the ground.’” …
• Englishman in New York says “Denmark’s Crime Is Ignorance Not Malice” … uh, what crime? …
  

  TRANSPORTATION

• Bridge and Tunnel Club blog comments on the NYPD puchase of muscle cars that “it is absolutely necessary to be able to attain speeds of 150 mph while patrolling the wide-open streets of Manhattan” … New York Hack: do cabs go that fast? …
  

  CRIME

• Bridge and Tunnel Club blog notes the first undercover kitten, used to arrest a “a back-alley, unlicensed veterinarian” …
• Cake or Death?‘s headline about the 16 year old kid who stabbed his mother 111 times: “‘Cause 110 Just Didn’t Get The Job Done” …
• Ace of Spades says “FEMA Aid Fraud [is] rampant” …
  

  LAWYERS

• opinionistas has “a list of observations from an experienced legal secretary” … our favorite: “15. You don’t know how to spell demurrer.” …
  

  ANIMALS

• Express Train has a pic of a fashionista in a fur coat waiting for a train … lucky she didn’t run into the all-caps unhinged commenter MEllANY …
• Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) reports that the “Lost Bird of Paradise Found, In Paradise” … by “the recent Conservation International (CI) expedition to Indonesia. This month-long expedition was the brain child of scientist and CI vice president, Bruce Beehler” … check the post for many pictures and lots of interesting details …
• 10,000 Birds writes about the CI expedition to Indonesia: “sometimes we have bad days when we lose a bird forever and sometimes we have good days where we discover a long-lost friend or a brand-new one. With the recent discovery of a whole bushel of species in a remote part of Papua New Guinea in eastern Indonesia, we’ve just enjoyed an extremely good day.” …
  

  FOOD

• eat drink one woman reports that James Oliver Cury orders in “from Doyer’s Vietnamese and Café Habana when we are too busy, or tired, to cook” …
• NYC nosh says Rice Krispie Treats are “everywhere, pre-cut into hefty bars, gussied up with sleek sans-serif logos, and stickered with a price tag that might make Snap, Crackle, and Pop blanch” …
  

  LOVE

• Greasy Guide has the exclusive “Greasy Guide to Valentines Day 2006” … hmmm, somehow “Chocolate Guide to Valentines Day 2006” sounds better to our ears …
  

  I CAN MAKE THAT!

• CaiLun.info turns his book making skills to a business card holder … he could sell tons of those …
• the daily isolato is “totally addicted to” Paper Doll Heaven … “My only criticism is that the wardrobe selection is not as humiliating as I would like.” …
• The Urban Grind has a pic of “Another Interesting Japanese Invention” … looks good to us …

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The Big Apple Blog Festival is listed on the ÜberCarnival page and in Carnival News.
To nominate your favorite blog post about NYC, or if you have a NYC blog and want to see something in the next BABF … or you have a NYC-related blog and would like to host an upcoming BABF … send us a short write up and a permalink to aguyinnewyork [at] gmail.com … or use the Carnival Submit Form … see you next week …
You are free to repost the Big Apple Blog Festival so long as you leave this URL attached: BigAppleBlogFestival.com
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