silveradept | And that was Monday.

One exam tomorrow - one hour, and then all done. Shouldn't be too hard, although the review session tonight was absolutely useless. No worries, though. It'll be done, and I'll be done, and that will be the best thing ever.

A wonderfully symbolic gesture: The Illinois (and possibly California) legislatures are drafting articles of impeachment for the president. (The Chicago-Sun Times confirms Illinois) They will at least go to the House of Reps. if they pass, but they're likely to die there. Ah, well. Perhaps a second attempt if the Congress should change hands?

This morning, I got three doses of the same sort of idea. Two of them were an article I remember reading about the hijacking of the mission of Jesus of Nazareth to suit the whims of Jerry Falwell and his ilk. Both people mentioned that while they weren't going to be shy about their religious belief, that Falwell's family of fuck-ups were making it obscenely difficult for someone to say they were a Christian and not have the images and errors of those hypocrites come to mind. Sandwiched between them on the progression of my friendslist, is perhaps an abstraction of it by

bradhicks, about the pervasiveness of Christians and Christian imegery/language, that some believers don't think that anyone can be exposed to Christianity by accident or proximity to a believer. Somewhat of a firestorm in comments, but it's a controlled blaze rather than a wildfire.

The Internet is a place of contrariness. On one page, modding an Altoids case to hold an iPod shuffle. The other, making a mint holder out of an iPod shuffle.

Something that may be of interest to the people who feel that affirmative action is worth protecting: Diversity in groups changes the way they work. In one way or another, it appears that having a racially diverse group of people may improve discussions and jury deliberations. I'm not sure if this is necessarily that such a group is more likely to broach the subject (they did say that they were more comfortable with discussing it, which suggests that it came up more often), or whether the all-white juries were suppressing talk of it, which the article implies (apparently, when the subject was brought up, other dismissed it as unimportant). I'm not sure this is necessarily a conclusion that there's still some idea that in a group of their racial peers, white people still have some oppressive tendencies. Might be that in a diverse group, more people are race-conscious and feel a certain necessity to entertain it as a possibility. In a non-diverse group, it might be that there is more focus on other objects than race. Might be just the way we think in the PC era than anything else. Still, if it really is that diverse groups produce better decisions, then bring on the diversity.

Something else that could be important: Congress may be considering a bill that would change the way the Internet and cable work. One of the more alarming provisions of such a bill is that it would permit ISPs to wield gatekeeper powers by preventing states or localities from enforcing or creating laws to ensure net neutrality. Some effects are the possible slowing or preventing pages from loading that are antithetical or competitors to a particular ISP or government will. As a communication medium, the Internet has great potential. Making a "fast lane" and "slow lane" or even a "forbidden zone" is not something that should happen. Should the bill actually make it to the floor, it might not be a bad idea to rattle your Congresscritters. (Whether or not it does anything - after all, one of the sponsors is from this state.)

Abstracting this particular example into a more general idea, Loompanics suggests that, corporations really run the country, utilizing government to accomplish what ends they can't do themselves. Or doing things that the government is forbidden to do, back when laws were passed that did actual good. The corporate environment might resemble something more akin to totalitarianism than collaboration. That the government may be drifting (or already has been drifting for some time) into being run like a corporation, seen like one, and with a corporate sort of boss does not bode well for the individual.

But don't take my word with it. Otherwise, you're just another chicken with a "Down with conformity" sign.

I, on the other hand, have an exam to deal with in the morning. Going to bed.