Yesterday's entry.

I know what happens if I try to condense two days worth of material into one entry: "tl; dr". Although the same could probably be said for one day's entry for me in a lot of cases, but that's because I usually have a fountain of links and things spilling over and all rushing my way and threatening to drown me in their goodness. So this is what would have appeared last night, had I not gone and watched Seven Samurai with greyweirdo last night (good film, by the way. For people expecting something like the Crazy 88 from Kill Bill, there's going to be no appeal. But if you appreciate tactics, films about honor and Doing What's Right and a certain standard of historical accuracy in your fights, then this movie is definitely worth seeing.), and then proceeded to chat about issues numerous until odd hours of the morning.

So let's consult the spirits to see whether it was a good idea. First question - can we crush many girls' hearts by revealing to them that Doogie Howser is a homosexual? "Answer Hazy. Try again Later." Hrm, maybe we should try again, not in the Magic 8-Ball style, but with the homemade Ouija board. If the answers still aren't to our liking, or there's someone in the house convinced that it's a tool for luring people into possession by malevolent forces, then we can use the handcrafted morning star to smash it into bits, right? If what we were consulting were something like this pigheaded cyclops, then I'd probably want to take a couple whacks myself.

A very strong WTF for this story: A gent pulls an awl out of his arse at gunpoint, according to the headline. We find out that he had it for some undisclosed reason, and removed it by himself after he had been arrested for indecent exposure (wanking off in a public place). The police weren't taking chances, so he pulled it out while they had their guns on him. What I want to know is why that person has an awl in his arse in the first place.

Commendable camera work in this flash that shows just what bored engineers and geeks will do with their time. Office Goldberg looks like it got taken all in one shot, with sufficient pauses built into the machine for the cameraperson to get situated. In much similar silly veins, the top 10 reasons to convert from the Church of the Subgenius to Pastafarianism.

A foolproof way of making sure your drives don't have sensitive data left on them - slag them in a crucible.

In International affairs - assuming that automatic appeals fail, Saddam and his top advisers will hang. The court has spoken, and people are second-guessing as to whether this was a foreordained result. Anyone who's been following the trial want to comment about how much Saddam has admitted to or justified that would get him hung in an impartial court? In other bits, if you bank with HSBC, realize they loan money to states the U.S. says sponsor terrorism, with the implication that there are plenty of other businesses that happily sell and buy from those same nations. The free market imposes its will, I suppose, in pursuit of profit, that even things such as sanctions and official disapprovals will be stepped around. Gives some credence, perhaps, to the idea that "Y'know, if you stopping handing them money hand over fist, you might be able to work some change." Last scary bit for international - 2005 was a record greenhouse gas year. Kind of explains why the climate is shifting around in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, doesn't it?

Domestically, be reminded: This is one of the faces of "family values" voters helped by "faith-based initiatives". In hoping for Christian behavior, she seems to have gotten everything but instead. Douglas Rushkoff adds on why it's time to go beyond sheeplike "true believers" into people who take charge and actually read and extract useful information from the mythologies and stories of their past, without having to believe them literally or even historically true, word for word for every God-forsaken word. And to put the nail in the coffin on what we really need to start voting and working for in this country, America 101 says, in language backed by damning facts, that we need to stop saying "Wouldn't it be nice if schools had all the money they needed and the air force had to hold a bake sale to buy new jets?" and start making it happen. Education, infrastructure, deficit spending, and more, all covered, and all part of the argument that if we want the country to succeed, we need to pour a lot more money into making sure that everyone has the basics. If the country wants to turn itself around, the number-one priority on all state and federal budgets should be to ensure that all public schools in the country are adequately funded, their instructors are paid comparable, if not more, than their educated peers, the infrastructure, including roadways and power grids, can handle the increasing loads being demanded of them, and spending within our limits so that we can pay down our debts. The sooner, the better, because if we wait, it only means we cut deeper when we have to shape up. America 101 also says that the gap between the rich and the poor has to come down, the government shouldn't be giving them more breaks and ways to avoid taxation, and to make the rich pony up their millions and billions to where it's most needed - not in paying tuition for private school, but in ensuring that the public school has textbooks from this decade, rather than 1950. The government needs to go progressive again and not only reaffirm its belief that all persons are created equal, but find and put its money where its mouth is. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Be remembering.

Today is 5 November, remember. In two days, on 7 November, there's an election involved. This guy says I'm not going to vote because nothing's going to change. That's quite the possibility - nothing may change at all. DRT says to something like that "Who Cares What You Think?" I'm with DRT, if only for the want to see the birth of viable third-parties, or the existence of an actual left. Getting enough votes to them so that they can claim matching funding from the government will help. There will still be spending limits involved, but even so, if the vote can keep them getting enough money to spread the message, we might see the peaceful revolution from inside. It just has to get started. So if you're not going to vote, because nothing will change, cast your ballot in favor of the third-party candidate that represents you best, please.

( The Guy Fawkes Day Rhyme, because every aspiring liberal anarcho-blogger needs to have it handy )

Anyway, beyond that point, there's the usual cavalcade of insanity to deal with. Like opinion polls in "our allies" nations returning that G.W. Bush is thought more dangerous than Kim Jong-Il. Perhaps it's an effect of all the negative ad campaigns. Which are apparently designed to make voters stay home, not vote. So go vote, American-types. Even military papers are calling for Rumsfield to get out.

According to this article by the BBC, there's 50 years left before fish stocks die out. Which accelerates the dying out of other marine species, and so forth - it's a domino collapse. So again, keeping eyes on sustainability and passing the planet to our seventieth generation is a good thing.

In the offbeat, we find a "Catholic" group in England behaving badly towards the witches. The bad behavior is one thing, however, I'm taking significant offense at the way the article is written, as well. To their credit for peddling influence, the part about religious hate crime is right after the "they called me a 'whore witch'" part. To their detriment for peddling influence, the sentence "She said there were no plans to put a curse on the Christians." My hair, it comes out in clumps upon reading this. "So, Pagan, when did you stop beating your wife?" Same kind of statement. The group to which the free radicals were attached condoned the problem, and then said (and this is in greyweirdo's absolute best whining voice - if you've heard it, you know exactly how this sounds), "But we got harrassed, too! Why aren't we suing them?" Most likely, because they weren't breaking laws. This is the obverse of the coin when you have your event - you get harrassed. So long as there weren't any laws broken, sorry. Suck it up.

Here's the good thing for tonight, though - Five ways to make your life happier in the short term. On top of that, I add one more: 6. Read about a gentleman's encounter with TitS.