This Salon blog posting talks about how the U.S. Congress is going to come up with $200 billion to pay for hurricane Katrina's damages: By cutting funding for things they don't like.

John Gushue of dot-dot-dot reports that the Canadian Media Guild tabled an offer of settlement Thursday -- one that was batted away by CBC management.

It's a comprehensive post by John that talks about lockout-related rumour, innuendo and gossip from a wide variety of sources. :)

On Tuesday night, the Canadian Journalism Foundation hosted a session called Bloggers Rising: Shamans or shams? (note: that page allows you to access an archived webcast of the event).

While I appreciate the fact the CFJ puts these sessions on, this would have been a better event two years ago. The agenda has moved forward.

I was just updating my opus on the CJF blogging event when a spider dropped from the ceiling, about 30 cm away from me. He lowered himself to about the height of my navel.

Then, he stopped, reversed course and climbed back up to the ceiling.

I would estimate he lifted himself over a metre. With a body length of four millimetres (I'm guessing), that's like climbing a rope at least 250 times its body length.

In my case, that would be like climbing a rope over 476 metres long in about 15 to 20 seconds. Needless to say, that wouldn't happen -- although I don't have eight limbs. But I still think I'd have trouble with a 238-metre straight-up climb.

Actually, I think I'd have trouble with a 2.38-metre straight-up climb. :)

So while that's an impressive display by the spider, do they actually climb their own silk strands in these situations, or do they have some internal fishing-reel like structure that reels them upward?

Wikipedia tells me spiders have glands called spinnerets which produce the silk strand, but the strand wasn't left hanging there.

The Salon blurb: George Clooney's second directorial project refuses to sacrifice craftsmanship to polemics, even as it kicks the pants of the contemporary media.

Robin Rowland, a locked-out CBCer, was quick with the 'print screen' button last weekend after finding the Ottawa Citizen website had been hacked.

A story about cow poop dominated. See the image here.