Welcome to this week’s edition of the Tar Heel Tavern, a revolving blog carnival that highlights the best posts of the week from North Carolina bloggers.

Mandie sent this post for the Tar Heel Tavern: Nope, no baby yet, but it was quickly outdated by this post: Had baby, no travel!. Birth is pretty amazing anyway, but Mandie’s story is particularly so. That little Logan is a handsome fella!

Nicomachus thinks that spam comments are hilarious, and then ties it in with what makes us happy (or not) in Spam Comments and Happiness.

Kenneth Corn shut down Colonel Corn’s Camera and started a new blog that focuses on his mission work in Kenya. Follow along with him this year as he and his fellow missionaries prepare for the big trip to Nairobi in July.

Billy the Blogging Poet is writing a new saga, based on the tales of his new friend Pharoah the parrot. Warning to manly men: The Book of Hector is a chick story. Billy says that it explains his spiritual beliefs, but you’ll have to keep reading the series to figure that out.

At Moomin Light, the subject this week is Shyness and Self-Confidence, a strange combination that I think is prevalent in a lot of the bloggers that I read. (Although maybe not you political bloggers!)

Steve Emery brings back some great memories as he reports on his trip to the skating rink with The Zero Bar Club, or “Why Can’t This Be Love?” But then, so does his other post, All Trees are Hollow, with some very thought-provoking observations on the inner nature of trees. Decisions, decisions. I can’t choose - please go read both!

There are some in this world that feed off hate, and work to poison as many other souls as they can so that they can gorge themselves on a steady supply. I generally do not name these people here, since they tend to be such shameless egotists that they’ll say anything to get more attention, and I’m not inclined to contribute to their self-love fests. However, I understand others who get fed up and need to push back. In this week’s Tavern, Ron of 2sides2ron suggests that we hold our elected officials accountable when they chuckle at paid speakers such as the Viper Queen by asking them to publicly condemn her remarks.

Coturnix is excited about the success of the ‘07 Science Blogging Conference in January and is already busy making plans for next year’s event.

I haven’t had much time to blog lately because of my job and my labors of love, but I did celebrate my second blogiversary this week.

Next week, the Tavern will be hosted by the absolutely scrutable Scrutiny Hooligans. But we need hosts for weeks after that. Please check the schedule and let Coturnix know if you can volunteer.