In 2006, Rita Arens of Surrender Dorothy approached me with a huge idea, an exquisitely organized binder and an adult beverage. The result? Sleep is for the Weak, an anthology of superb blogging by parents edited by Rita Arens and starring the 23 parenting bloggers listed below. The first piece is a very personal foreword by Stacy Morrison, editor-in-chief of Redbook.

Maybe it's just summertime, I think. Posting on craft blogs always slows way down in the summertime. That's the likely explanation. Except the slowdown began way before summertime. Except the slowdown includes blogs just going away. Except the slowdown includes bloggers lowering blog posts because of book deals. Except the slowdown includes a lack of interesting posts on the blogs that are there. Which makes some wonder, is the craft blog dead?

Why do you blog? Aren't you being selfish? Aren't you boasting? Aren't you boring the world? Who gave you the idea that your expression has a place in this world? Who do you think you are?

Have you had it with .com and .net? Want your own top level domain name? Maybe an address like www.virginia.debolt all your very own? Well, now you can have it, for a slight fee. ICANN (The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) just announced Biggest Expansion to Internet in Forty Years Approved for Implementation. Here's some of the announcement:

I'm in Budapest at the Global Voices Advocacy Summit, where over 50 blog and internet activists from around the world are here to talk about defending free speech online In morning sessions, presenters described the ways that countries block and filter bits and pieces of the Internet, including blogs and blog hosting sites. Currently, BlogHer readers are mostly from the U.S. and do not face government censorship. Yet privacy issues for women can also be domestic issues.

I'm going to hit you with bits and pieces of interesting stuff today. Everything in small doses. I guess you heard about George Carlin passing away. I happen to like him–even though he's not everyone's favorite. Jessica Hagy at Indexed apparently liked him, too, as you can see from her post Well, shit.