Link Dump for January 24th, 2009 through January 28th, 2009

Link dump for January 24th, 2009 through January 28th, 2009:

• The Triumph of Blue Patriotism – "This patriotism’s founding document is the Declaration of the Independence. Abraham Lincoln, not George Washington, is the father of the nation, and Martin Luther King, not Ronald Reagan, is its greatest recent leader. This patriotism is not red, not white, but blue."
• Growing Food on the White House Lawn – "1918: President Woodrow Wilson and First Lady Edith Wilson use sheep to mow and fertilize the First Lawn at a time when the country is trying to conserve resources for the war effort."
  Somehow I doubt that my wife would let me keep sheep to keep from having to mow the lawn.
• A Low-Tech Treatment for Bee Plague – I've been thinking about bees a lot lately, in preparation for camp. And then pieces like this pop up and I think about them even more. Good, short opinion piece about possible solutions to colony collapse.
  "Those remnant wild bees, feral and native alike, might just be the seeds of a solution. And to sow those seeds and foster their growth, we must not till the earth, but do just the opposite: we must take patches of agricultural land out of production, and restore them to natural habitat."
• Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy – "Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth."
• Al Dente – An adorable and slightly trippy short film (found via the Tor.com's blog's Saturday Morning Cartoon series). Note: requires Quicktime to view on site, but you can download mp4 versions further down the page.