Welcome to December - 01 December 2007

The fun continues. Sent off a big bill today, had a little fun down at the pub, listening to the more experienced staffers talking about this, that, and the other thing. There was also snow, and rain, and snow, and rain, and it was very much a squee situation when it snowed. I think I’m good for a bit. Yaysnow.

My professional self said, “The following gets top billing.” And I agree with him. thatguychuck opened a young child's eyes to the vast resources of the library. It’s that kind of moment that librarians are trying so desperately to cultivate and show, and that’s the result that should happen all the freaking time. So, a big thank you to thatguychuck for turning someone on to the library. Now, hopefully, we can keep him as a lifelong user. (And, this indirectly proves that some library modernization tactics are striking true, assuming we can get to that Promethean moment.)

Because it’s now into December, stories involving the VEWPRF, in any part of the Festival way, when No Touch Monkey does its annual linking to the story of Saturnalia, I can, too. Said story does have NC-17 material in it, and is unabashedly Pagan. It may offend some people’s sensibilities.

Tonight’s leading points involve live performances of Waiting for Godot that used the backdrop of the rebuilding New Orleans as the setting. Above and beyond the plays were teaching initiatives and community donations. It’s art and politics and activism all merged together into one impressive sequence.

Internationally, a tale of two ideas. Officially, it looks like the Mohammed teddy bear teacher will be pardoned, but the second half of that article describes a protest where people are brandishing swords and calling for the execution of the teacher, apparently with government sanction, because the police were not breaking up or getting the protesters to move along. I still find it interesting that they consider it a blasphemy rather than praise that the class wanted to have Mohammed as the name of a shared mascot. It could just as easily have been spun as a positive idea, for the children could easily be taught to take refuge in the prophet in the same way they took refuge in the bear.

Domestically, Republicans see themselves as more sane and mentally fit than Democrats. According to self-reported data, anyway. Because many of them never see themselves as wrong, and others see themselves as God’s chosen, no matter what?

FEMA staffers involved in fake news conference promoted. Probably because they did their job quite well, despite the obvious immorality of what they did.

Donald Lambro misses the bigger point in talking about the Democrats having an increasingly wealthy constituency - it’s not that the Democrats are becoming the party of the rich, is that the Democrats are joining the Republicans as a party of the rich. With nobody representing the middle class and the poor, then the problems happen.

Network Neutrality may return to the spotlight, somewhat in response to apparent discriminatory actions by telecoms with regard to applications like BitTorrent.

The following item is suggestive and may be entirely suitable for minors going through puberty, or the young at heart. Namely, spice up your sugar cookies by using some Kama Sutra-inspired cutters.

On the other end of the age spectrum (although with blue pills, all things are possible), Medicare is having quite the difficulty cutting costs on oxygen tanks, and most of their other services, too. Maybe that’s where all that flak about rising medicine costs are coming from - everybody wants to make more money off the government and insurance companies.

If you’re part of a forum (or several), or host a wildly successful news and commentary blog, then you probably have at least one of the community member archetypes in your audience or among your fellow forumites.

Our Winners tonight, in addition to the top-billed Godot plays in New Orleans, are the groups that provide a gathering place for young atheists akin to religious Sunday instruction. I like the idea of young and older atheists and freethinkers gathering to share beliefs and strategies for living in the world, including how to stand up to the religious majority.

The Big Loser for tonight has either constructed a superb satire about the advances of women over the last few years and the patriarchic attitude that still attempts to suppress them, or thoroughly believes in that patriarchic attitude and deserved a freshly-baked quiche to the face. In either case, I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people, including the entire Republican Party’s candidate slate, that believe every word of Who Wears The Pants?, an opinion espousing long dresses as the perfect, timeless indicators of what's great about women as YHWH’s own truth.

Last for tonight, if you’ve flown, lots of airlines have something called SkyMall, that lets you shop for overpriced knicknacks while you fly. Gizmodo takes this to a logical conclusion and presents 10 reasons why we're all doomed, based on what's available from the SkyMall catalogue. Just remember, all of you, you are not a number. You may, in fact, be part of a tiny but independent nation, kind of like Greater Llewellynland. Or perhaps you are instead part of a Neophilic Irreligion, like Pastafarianism. Either way, you are more unique than you think, just like everyone else.

I’m going to bed.

Huzzah and Sundays - 02 December 2007

It’s the Capital One Bowl for the padded rugby squad this year, which means despite a four-loss season, a January 1 bowl in Florida has been achieved. (If I recall correctly, this bowl was the Citrus Bowl not too long ago.) In other padded rugby news, Doctor Football has been sighted somewhere in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area.

Actual news in news for once, namely that Six Apart will no longer be in charge of Livejournal. Instead, a company called SUP will set up Livejournal, Inc, and take control of all of us. SUP has some experience with LJ, apparently being the company SixApart contracted to take control of the Russian-language LiveJournals. This could be considered an improvement for the LJ service over what SixApart has done. Time will tell, but the new company is more actively soliciting information and opinion from the community. The community lj_2008 has been set up to talk to the users and to get some input about new things coming down the pipe. For those concerned about the way that things have gone downhill with the new policy initiatives and placements, lj_policy is your spot. From the early entires, it looks like the new overlords are going to have to give real answers regarding Strikethrough, Abuse policies, appeals processes, and rolling LJ back towards what it was when it was by invite - a small journaling site that let people post what they wanted, so long as it wasn’t obviously illegal.

Rejoice, citizens of the world, and fear not. Just because the United States asserts that it can kidnap foreign citizens who are wanted in the United States, and uses the precedent of the United States Supreme Court to justify it, does not mean that anyone should be afraid for their safety. Our agents in Blackwater USA and other professional security companies will do their best to ensure your hooding and disappearance is as painless as possible. Those of you complaining about how this violates your rights will be expected to assume the submission position as our associates at Taser field-test their new prototypes.

For our audience at home, rejoice, citizens, for the official death toll of Iraqis has gone down this month, to a mere 718. And thanks to this great achievement and others, Mr. Bush continues to demand more money for his conflicts, considering them the top priority of the Congress, and threatening to eliminate 200,000 civilian jobs if his demands are not met. Hrm. Maybe we can rework that some to be clearer. American Samidzat? How about you? Rogue "Defense" Mercenaries Holding 200,000 American Citizens Hostage! Well, that’s certainly different.

Less of rejoicing and more of baring teeth and snarling, the Republicans want to divide California's electoral votes by Congressional district - but only California, which would give them twenty more electoral votes without risking any elsewhere. In for a penny, in for a pound, Republicans. If you want to change things like that, you should let the whole nation do that. We’ll all show our colors as a deeply-divided house, and we can do things as normal. If we’re doing election reform, though, how about some nationwide IRV?

And then, now moving a more serious tone (even though the material before is Serious Business), Paul Jacob thinks Wal-Mart's swell, and that those opposing them are spoiled brats throwing tantrums. Yes, including the unions, who generally chafe at Wal-Mart’s union-busting policies and general refusal to even permit the idea of organizing to percolate. And yes, Wal-Mart does make money. Plenty of money. They squeeze suppliers, hire on part-time and don’t pay benefits for most of the workforce, right? That easily eliminates a large amount of operating costs and makes it possible to profit immensely. Sure, people like Wal-Mart. It’s cheap stuff. How it gets there is usually what people are complaining about. And then there also complaint that Wal-Mart tends to shove out competition, through the ability to offer the lowest prices. So I think there’s a little more there than a child in the middle of a store, throwing a fit.

Um, while the idea of giving the homeless work and employ is a good idea, but I’m not sure that the idea of Bumvertising should take off that much. Of course, it could be a parody, which would be easier to laugh off of, but I think someone will try to turn this into a serious thing at some point in their life.

The WGA strikers caught a nasty shock today - while Letterman and Conan will pay their workers salaries, and Carson Daly's non-union show is going back to work, Leno's crew just took a layoff.

An appeal to Canadian citizens is to replace or toss their old beer fridges, as the old models are energy-suckers. A nice, compact, energy-efficient fridge for your beers, and you could save money to get more beers. Everybody wins!

Lest people think that Radiohead’s idea of “pay what you feel is appropriate” for a product is novel and scary, the Seattle Times points out museums, plays, and other art institutions have been doing "pay what you can" for a while now, and they get people who pay full price even on those days.

At the end, because everyone can use some cute names, for critters or for children, The Comprehensive Bunny Name List. It is supposedly only for bunnies, but there’s enough coincidence around that if you should decide to use it for other purposes, someone will probably not prosecute you. If you’re up for cute that shades into much creepier and stranger territory, it sounds like the film Innocence is going to be your thing. At least, according to this review of Innocence, anyway.

If that’s not your thing, try some Strange Maps. Might be just the thing someone needs for a campaign.

If the creative mood should strike you, but you have trouble getting things done, Wishful Thinking's author has posted Time Management For Creative People, which offers some tips on setting up a simple system of Getting Things Done as well as providing plenty of time for you to be your creative self. It's short, too, so it won't tax too much of that creative time.