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Begin a new month! - 01 October 2007
Oct. 2nd, 2007 12:30 amAnd the cycle begins again. This time, though, it’s a cooler, chillier, eventually cold month, but we get harvest festivals and the point where the veil between the world of matter and the world of spirit is supposedly thinnest. And, hopefully, I get to wear a slick costume. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be going on the trick-or-treat, but instead giving the treats. It’s official, I’ve become old and am now beginning the process of slowly dying. Although if this child's costume appears at my doorstep on Halloween, I might very well award it Scariest Costume without too much hesitation. For those looking to have a better time in costume, the Furries Versus Klingons bowling Flickr stream might be worth a peek.
Michigan manages to get a budget passed, avoid government shut-down. Whether the budget is worth anything and will be stuck to, we have no idea. But they managed it.
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howardtayler, via bladespark, Radiohead is releasing their seventh album on-line, offering the entire thing for the price that the buyer wants to pay. You name the price that you are willing to pay for the Radiohead album, and congratulations, you have a Radiohead album. I heartily approve of this, and hope that Radiohead makes a great showing and profits more from letting their fanbase decide how much they want to pay for the album than by having a bunch of suits decide on their price, artificially inflate that price, and then give Radiohead a mere pittance of the revenue. Even if most of the albums sell for underneath a CD price, if all that money goes directly to Radiohead, they may make more money in profits than they would through conventional channels.
Those who are James Bond fans already likely know, but Lois Maxwell, famous for playing Moneypenny, M's secretary, passed away on Sunday at age 80. Eventually, even the Bond franchise has to change over the cast.
The price on the heads of Taliban leaders is at maximum, $200,000 USD, assuming they do not already have a larger price on their head. A new military-posted and promoted “Most Wanted” list for those persons is the beginning of a campaign aimed at getting the populous to turn in Taliban leaders and collect. In addition, the other cash rewards available are being stepped up. I wonder if this is a large expense of the Afghanistan war. Then again, if the United States would step down from being the number one arms seller to developing nations, then maybe there wouldn’t be quite such a problem.
Additionally in the Middle East, the New Yorker speculates that there's a buildup to an attack on Iran going on in the government, adding one more potential voice predicting what many have feared will happen sometime soon.
The protests in Burma have had a very ugly reaction by the military junta in control there - shooting and killing journalists documenting the event, and, according to an intelligence official, thousands of protesters, including Buddhist monks, that have been dumped in a mass grave somewhere in the jungle.
Newt Gingrich says he's not running for President of the United States, because to explore that option would force him to resign his position as chair of a tax-exempt organization. Which is probably the smarter idea for him, as it lets him continue to influence politics in a way that he probably could not do as President. Speaking of possible non-Presidential meddling, The Supreme Court of the United States has accepted nineteen cases for their docket, many of which will likely prove to be polarizing or trying to take advantage of the current makeup of the Court. Through all of this, Thomas Friedman says that America needs a 9/12 president, someone who can look past the old wound and start moving into the future again. In the battle over insuring children, a proposal has been floated that an increase in the cigarette tax could pay for the expansions. Which is great for quick cash flows. The Slacktivist and the article both note, however, that increasing the cigarette tax is not a viable long-term solution - either the tax drives away smokers, resulting in less income, or the government starts getting an interest in keeping people smoking, an unhealthy behavior, to pay the insurances of people that they want to keep healthy.
An archive of pictures from the London Zoo has gone on-line, such that one can see pictures of a tiny tiger and a bear cub together. There’s probably going to be a lot of lolanimals, and maybe more than a few “D’awwww” moments in there. The Zoological Society of London’s photo archive on-line is available at http://www.zslprints.com.
I’m having a little trouble finding where it is that I start taking issue with the following piece - Myopia in a Secular Age. Is it the statement that belief in one messianic faith somehow saved America from other supposed messianic faiths, like communism? Is it the statement that while official state religion is expressly forbidden, religion should be allowed to express influence on the political process? The approval of Presidential candidates waving their religious affiliations around like battle standards? Or the smug conclusion that atheists and skeptics should be thankful that the country’s Christians simply choose to ignore and marginalize them rather than actively hunt them down?
Al Gore, for this election, is doing much better in the media than he did when he was actually on a political ticket. What’s changed in six years, other than having a chimp running the country? Vanity Fair has a look at how Gore was maligned in the 2000 election and how the media views him now. I know the Liberal Eagle has been making mention of this truth for a while now, and that if the media hadn’t already decided on their stories and who was going to win the election with their coverage, we might have had a President Gore on the strength of his policy mind, rather than falling for the down-home-idiot show that Mr. Bush put on.
For those who wondered when it was going to happen, Cthulhu: The Movie. Coming to theaters, perhaps if you have the right incantations and don’t go screaming mad. Continuing in the bizarre department, mysterious carved stone heads are giving Yorkshire police reason to scratch theirs.
Slate offers a look at how much it really costs to pave paradise and put up a parking lot. And not only that, many of the spaces that are required go unused while others seem to never have any free spots. It changes the water runoff and the heat, so much so that the weather patterns may be affected by the presence of the blacktop. So being where I am, where there are several things within walking distance, I can cut down on my carbon footprint by making footprints in the dirt. Now, if only the mail delivery person that gives me mail from others would also take outgoing mail. But I guess I’ll have to hoof it to the post office tomorrow on lunch to send out all that stuff, every time I want to send something. Unless there’s a miracle “Outgoing mail” box in this apartment complex that I haven’t found yet.
The last thing for tonight looks to be a very useful tool - You Convert It - which apparently allows you to upload a file in one format and then convert it to another format, with the results being e-mailed to your inbox. It even does unit conversions. Perhaps those who want to do some converting can have a look at it and see whether it suits you.
That’s the news for tonight. There may be other material beneath this line, but if links are all you came for, you can safely stop reading now.
Tonight on Mind’s Eye Theatre (well, more of a marionette show, really), there’s a little reflection on the way my mind works. Or doesn’t, depending. I think it can be reasonably assumed that the neural pathways of my brain are unique and the impulses that run down them (which can be translated into thoughts or other such things) are also profoundly unique. Such that when someone makes comment about trying to make rules for situations in which there are no rules, my response was that occasionally, someone does manage to make rules out of no rules and produce a general theory of relativity. Which had nothing to do with the context of the original statement, which was about human interaction and courtship, for which there is no unified theory nor even the inklings of a hypothesis that might have general applications. I was working under the assumption that “no rules” was meant more in a “no rules that we can discern right now, but perhaps in the future” way rather than a “there’s so much variance here that any (or some point that is extraordinarily close to that infinite) attempt at a general abstraction is doomed to failure.” Suffice it to say, my response was confusing. And it was hinted that this was not the first time that I had made seemingly context-insensitive (think sensitivity-measure of precision, not sensitivity-human emotion) remarks. Additionally, there have been several times where recalling a particular factoid involves tripping across several memories or other factoids that appear to have no relation at all to each other, excepting by a narrative thread or a chance association that stuck. It’s what made me somewhat of an X-factor for my quiz bowl experience in high school. Now, this may be just normal variability in the human life - experience has molded me into the person that sees things the way that I do. It’s just a bit jarring when you have evidence that you’re out in left field picking dandelions while others are concentrating on the baseball game. (Is that a malapropism? [Dandelions -> Bloom County -> The “No Malapropisms” dandelion field -> mangled together phrases of “out in left field” and the stereotype of the uninterested player being in right field, picking dandelions out of the grass while the game is going on -> Malapropism?] No, it’s not, more of just a crush of phrases, rather than the use of a similar word where another is intended. Understand what I mean about odd associations?) I suppose that I could just stare at the way that my journal entiries sort of meander across Hell’s Half-Acre and back again as proof that the way things fit together for me is not the way things fit together for other people. And then a sort of social anxiety kicks in where I wonder how many other people agree with that assessment and have just been too polite to tell me that I’m making zero sense all the time. Ah, the twin terrors of wanting to fit in and wanting to stand out, but that’s another matter for another post, either in the past somewhere or in the future. I’m pretty sure I’ve already covered that subject before. If anyone feels like making an archive run to confirm/deny, go ahead. Although I do wonder what kind of time you have on your hands if you can do that.
Where I was actually going with this thought, eventually, was to the point of the actual exchange, namely that trying to set “rules” of interaction with other humans was an exercise that limited potential opportunities for growth and/or finding someone special to share hot cocoa with. There are plenty of “rules” about who can and cannot interact with each other, some based on age, others (still) based on race or creed, national or regional origin, or any other way of establishing a “them” and an “us”. Remarkably, we don’t currently have laws about interacting outside one’s caste or race or creed or such, although there are the ones that say two or more men and/or two or more women, partnered, can’t receive the benefits accorded to one man and one woman partnered, And recently there were laws that said people of dark skin couldn’t use the same facilities as people with lighter skin. Then, of course, the “rules” said that you didn’t date people outside your skin color. And you wonder how many lost romances there were because of that “rule”. And how many more are being lost because the “rules” say that you’re not supposed to have a large age disparity, or wage disparity, or distance, or that young adults are incapable of maintaining steady relationships at all, or this or that. Why limit ourselves? As beings with tremendous potential, creativity, and ability, why box yourself in by trying to follow the “rules”? The real rules are already restrictive enough. Don’t add additional burdens to yourself.
Anyway, pontification and social anxieties expressed, I think I’m going to go to bed. Either inspiration or memory erasure will strike, and I’ll feel better about myself and a bit more hopeful about my chances to find someone to share hot cocoa with in the morning. One of these days, I’m not sure when, I’m actually going to confront my poor self-image and kick him in the nuts. When it happens, though, I suspect everyone will know. Even me.
Michigan manages to get a budget passed, avoid government shut-down. Whether the budget is worth anything and will be stuck to, we have no idea. But they managed it.
From
howardtayler, via bladespark, Radiohead is releasing their seventh album on-line, offering the entire thing for the price that the buyer wants to pay. You name the price that you are willing to pay for the Radiohead album, and congratulations, you have a Radiohead album. I heartily approve of this, and hope that Radiohead makes a great showing and profits more from letting their fanbase decide how much they want to pay for the album than by having a bunch of suits decide on their price, artificially inflate that price, and then give Radiohead a mere pittance of the revenue. Even if most of the albums sell for underneath a CD price, if all that money goes directly to Radiohead, they may make more money in profits than they would through conventional channels.Those who are James Bond fans already likely know, but Lois Maxwell, famous for playing Moneypenny, M's secretary, passed away on Sunday at age 80. Eventually, even the Bond franchise has to change over the cast.
The price on the heads of Taliban leaders is at maximum, $200,000 USD, assuming they do not already have a larger price on their head. A new military-posted and promoted “Most Wanted” list for those persons is the beginning of a campaign aimed at getting the populous to turn in Taliban leaders and collect. In addition, the other cash rewards available are being stepped up. I wonder if this is a large expense of the Afghanistan war. Then again, if the United States would step down from being the number one arms seller to developing nations, then maybe there wouldn’t be quite such a problem.
Additionally in the Middle East, the New Yorker speculates that there's a buildup to an attack on Iran going on in the government, adding one more potential voice predicting what many have feared will happen sometime soon.
The protests in Burma have had a very ugly reaction by the military junta in control there - shooting and killing journalists documenting the event, and, according to an intelligence official, thousands of protesters, including Buddhist monks, that have been dumped in a mass grave somewhere in the jungle.
Newt Gingrich says he's not running for President of the United States, because to explore that option would force him to resign his position as chair of a tax-exempt organization. Which is probably the smarter idea for him, as it lets him continue to influence politics in a way that he probably could not do as President. Speaking of possible non-Presidential meddling, The Supreme Court of the United States has accepted nineteen cases for their docket, many of which will likely prove to be polarizing or trying to take advantage of the current makeup of the Court. Through all of this, Thomas Friedman says that America needs a 9/12 president, someone who can look past the old wound and start moving into the future again. In the battle over insuring children, a proposal has been floated that an increase in the cigarette tax could pay for the expansions. Which is great for quick cash flows. The Slacktivist and the article both note, however, that increasing the cigarette tax is not a viable long-term solution - either the tax drives away smokers, resulting in less income, or the government starts getting an interest in keeping people smoking, an unhealthy behavior, to pay the insurances of people that they want to keep healthy.
An archive of pictures from the London Zoo has gone on-line, such that one can see pictures of a tiny tiger and a bear cub together. There’s probably going to be a lot of lolanimals, and maybe more than a few “D’awwww” moments in there. The Zoological Society of London’s photo archive on-line is available at http://www.zslprints.com.
I’m having a little trouble finding where it is that I start taking issue with the following piece - Myopia in a Secular Age. Is it the statement that belief in one messianic faith somehow saved America from other supposed messianic faiths, like communism? Is it the statement that while official state religion is expressly forbidden, religion should be allowed to express influence on the political process? The approval of Presidential candidates waving their religious affiliations around like battle standards? Or the smug conclusion that atheists and skeptics should be thankful that the country’s Christians simply choose to ignore and marginalize them rather than actively hunt them down?
Al Gore, for this election, is doing much better in the media than he did when he was actually on a political ticket. What’s changed in six years, other than having a chimp running the country? Vanity Fair has a look at how Gore was maligned in the 2000 election and how the media views him now. I know the Liberal Eagle has been making mention of this truth for a while now, and that if the media hadn’t already decided on their stories and who was going to win the election with their coverage, we might have had a President Gore on the strength of his policy mind, rather than falling for the down-home-idiot show that Mr. Bush put on.
For those who wondered when it was going to happen, Cthulhu: The Movie. Coming to theaters, perhaps if you have the right incantations and don’t go screaming mad. Continuing in the bizarre department, mysterious carved stone heads are giving Yorkshire police reason to scratch theirs.
Slate offers a look at how much it really costs to pave paradise and put up a parking lot. And not only that, many of the spaces that are required go unused while others seem to never have any free spots. It changes the water runoff and the heat, so much so that the weather patterns may be affected by the presence of the blacktop. So being where I am, where there are several things within walking distance, I can cut down on my carbon footprint by making footprints in the dirt. Now, if only the mail delivery person that gives me mail from others would also take outgoing mail. But I guess I’ll have to hoof it to the post office tomorrow on lunch to send out all that stuff, every time I want to send something. Unless there’s a miracle “Outgoing mail” box in this apartment complex that I haven’t found yet.
The last thing for tonight looks to be a very useful tool - You Convert It - which apparently allows you to upload a file in one format and then convert it to another format, with the results being e-mailed to your inbox. It even does unit conversions. Perhaps those who want to do some converting can have a look at it and see whether it suits you.
That’s the news for tonight. There may be other material beneath this line, but if links are all you came for, you can safely stop reading now.
Tonight on Mind’s Eye Theatre (well, more of a marionette show, really), there’s a little reflection on the way my mind works. Or doesn’t, depending. I think it can be reasonably assumed that the neural pathways of my brain are unique and the impulses that run down them (which can be translated into thoughts or other such things) are also profoundly unique. Such that when someone makes comment about trying to make rules for situations in which there are no rules, my response was that occasionally, someone does manage to make rules out of no rules and produce a general theory of relativity. Which had nothing to do with the context of the original statement, which was about human interaction and courtship, for which there is no unified theory nor even the inklings of a hypothesis that might have general applications. I was working under the assumption that “no rules” was meant more in a “no rules that we can discern right now, but perhaps in the future” way rather than a “there’s so much variance here that any (or some point that is extraordinarily close to that infinite) attempt at a general abstraction is doomed to failure.” Suffice it to say, my response was confusing. And it was hinted that this was not the first time that I had made seemingly context-insensitive (think sensitivity-measure of precision, not sensitivity-human emotion) remarks. Additionally, there have been several times where recalling a particular factoid involves tripping across several memories or other factoids that appear to have no relation at all to each other, excepting by a narrative thread or a chance association that stuck. It’s what made me somewhat of an X-factor for my quiz bowl experience in high school. Now, this may be just normal variability in the human life - experience has molded me into the person that sees things the way that I do. It’s just a bit jarring when you have evidence that you’re out in left field picking dandelions while others are concentrating on the baseball game. (Is that a malapropism? [Dandelions -> Bloom County -> The “No Malapropisms” dandelion field -> mangled together phrases of “out in left field” and the stereotype of the uninterested player being in right field, picking dandelions out of the grass while the game is going on -> Malapropism?] No, it’s not, more of just a crush of phrases, rather than the use of a similar word where another is intended. Understand what I mean about odd associations?) I suppose that I could just stare at the way that my journal entiries sort of meander across Hell’s Half-Acre and back again as proof that the way things fit together for me is not the way things fit together for other people. And then a sort of social anxiety kicks in where I wonder how many other people agree with that assessment and have just been too polite to tell me that I’m making zero sense all the time. Ah, the twin terrors of wanting to fit in and wanting to stand out, but that’s another matter for another post, either in the past somewhere or in the future. I’m pretty sure I’ve already covered that subject before. If anyone feels like making an archive run to confirm/deny, go ahead. Although I do wonder what kind of time you have on your hands if you can do that.
Where I was actually going with this thought, eventually, was to the point of the actual exchange, namely that trying to set “rules” of interaction with other humans was an exercise that limited potential opportunities for growth and/or finding someone special to share hot cocoa with. There are plenty of “rules” about who can and cannot interact with each other, some based on age, others (still) based on race or creed, national or regional origin, or any other way of establishing a “them” and an “us”. Remarkably, we don’t currently have laws about interacting outside one’s caste or race or creed or such, although there are the ones that say two or more men and/or two or more women, partnered, can’t receive the benefits accorded to one man and one woman partnered, And recently there were laws that said people of dark skin couldn’t use the same facilities as people with lighter skin. Then, of course, the “rules” said that you didn’t date people outside your skin color. And you wonder how many lost romances there were because of that “rule”. And how many more are being lost because the “rules” say that you’re not supposed to have a large age disparity, or wage disparity, or distance, or that young adults are incapable of maintaining steady relationships at all, or this or that. Why limit ourselves? As beings with tremendous potential, creativity, and ability, why box yourself in by trying to follow the “rules”? The real rules are already restrictive enough. Don’t add additional burdens to yourself.
Anyway, pontification and social anxieties expressed, I think I’m going to go to bed. Either inspiration or memory erasure will strike, and I’ll feel better about myself and a bit more hopeful about my chances to find someone to share hot cocoa with in the morning. One of these days, I’m not sure when, I’m actually going to confront my poor self-image and kick him in the nuts. When it happens, though, I suspect everyone will know. Even me.
