Misc.

* NYC's maple-syrup smell mystery resolved! It was New Jersey. (Really!)

* The AP lacks a basic understanding of fair use. More at MeFi.

* Raccoons have invaded the White House. Sadly the Secret Service has only trained for nighttime raccoon assault.

* How Obama is screwing up the stimulus: failure to counteract zombie Republican lies. More on this from Steve Benen.

* Also on the Obama-screwing-up front: he's publishing op-eds in dead-tree media. Nobody reads newspapers anymore, gramps!

* Though they do, apparently, read alt-weeklies.

* Also: Judd Gregg still sucks.

* Climate Progress now has one-stop anti-nuclear shopping.

* The nonprofit industrial complex.

* How various songs react to Ze Frank's voice-activated drawing applications.

* And via Kottke: Who wouldn't want to take a class entitled "What's So Great about The Wire?"?

Tuesday morning links.

* If movie posters were honest. See also: if covers of marginal SF/fantasy series were honest.

* Who knew full moons had names? Via G-Lens.

* Is California the new Michigan?

* Tough times in the USA: people are eating racoon. This has nothing to do with the recession, apparently—some people are just choosing to eat it because they are gross.

* Potsdam University is offering a graduate how-to course on flirting for computer geeks.

* Arm-Chair Logic has your elementary logic test for the day.

* Solar apocalypse: NASA warns of 'Space Katrina.' My production company has already optioned the rights to this headline, don't even think about it.

* Harper's Index: Bush retrospective mega-edition.

* A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem. That's right: online sexual predators have infiltrated top-level attorneys general offices in 49 states. We must redouble our efforts.

* And Whedonesque asks, appropriately forlorn: Has it really been five years since Angel ended? That is a little hard to believe. The Armchair Critic ranks the twenty-five best episodes, and the five worst, of one of the best (and surely the most underappreciated) SF series of all time.