"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." To be fair, these things are significantly meaner than our badgers.
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(1)
03:15:33 PM,
Thursday 12 July 2007
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Am thinking of going to the local quaker meeting this week. I rather like the idea. I think there is something that could be called an inner light, a moral sense we all have, and that we should all spend more time sitting around thinking and talking about how to be good people. I feel I need more community than I have presently. And much of the tradition really resonates. I've been a plain-dressing, teetotalling, stick-in-the-mud my whole life, after all. But there are issues. There is the big theological one: I find the very notion of direct divine revelation deeply off-putting; I'm dead set against people mistaking their own thoughts for God. Though there are apparently nontheist quakers, so that may be navigable.
Beyond that, there are minor ones, I have never been sold on pacifism, or the humanist reimagining of Jesus, and just my general contrariness might make it unpleasant for me. But none of these are very good reasons not to at least poke my head in. Worst case is that they're like the unitarians, and more concerned with deciding what the government should do, while neglecting to worry about personal morality; mistaking political orthodoxy for decency. Best case is that their really is a little colony of morally serious, thoughtful, introspective, friendly people just around the corner.
Which is to say, I'm very good at coming up with reasons not to do things, particularly if they involve meeting people, but I may do this anyway.
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(21)
08:54:36 PM,
Wednesday 11 July 2007
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I knew all the pioneering chocolate companies were Quaker, and I knew that chocolate was originally seen as a sort of healthy alternative to coffee and alcohol, but I'd never put the two together before. (Heard on Marketplace's story about the Cadbury Salmonella case).
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07:03:27 PM,
Wednesday 11 July 2007
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Concerts should have DDR arrows.
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08:06:01 PM,
Tuesday 10 July 2007
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Does using a credit card, but paying it off in full every month, make me complicit in the bank's usury? I'm getting a free service and rewards, and not paying anything for it; our credit card system operates by tempting people into debt on dreadful terms. Having a system of credit is good and important, but it's hard to stomach the way the credit cards try to push people into debt, or the rates they charge. Debit cards or American Express style charge cards are entirely upright and unobjectionable. Maybe I should switch.
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(7)
04:15:11 PM,
Tuesday 10 July 2007
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Fresh Air had an excellent interview yesterday with a healthcare wonk from Chapel Hill, discussing the policy and politics of american health care. His wistfulness about the managed care debacle is common among old-timers I've met, as is his frustration with the doctor's associations. Very interesting all around.
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(3)
09:25:16 AM,
Tuesday 10 July 2007
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"The painful realization that flowed from this moment, was that we geeks crave/need cool more desperately than any other segment of society, and for the most part we need it to be as straightforward to obtain as opening a box, because the road to cool involves dexterity or social skills, we’re screwed."
Myself, at some point I seem to have substituted peculiarity for coolness, it being easier to come by. I'm particularly happy about my new straw boater with a black band.
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06:43:54 PM,
Monday 9 July 2007
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If you had two weeks, one to spend in Berlin, and one to spend either in Berlin or somewhere reachable from Berlin, what would you do? What would we be remiss in missing?
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(3)
11:12:24 PM,
Tuesday 3 July 2007
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I think Giuliani loses:
It was Giuliani's office that prosecuted Marc Rich. Here's Guiliani on Rich's pardon...
"Well, I'm shocked that the President of the United States would pardon him. After all, he never paid a price. He got on an airplane, took all his records, and ran off to Zug, Switzerland, where he's remained a fugitive, and has made untold efforts to try to get the charges reduced, including many, many overtures and entreaties based on the use of influence."
And on the Libby commutation...
"After evaluating the facts, the President came to a reasonable decision and I believe the decision was correct."
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(6)
11:06:33 AM,
Tuesday 3 July 2007
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Speaking of abuse of clemency...
Obama's statement: "This decision to commute the sentence of a man who compromised our national security cements the legacy of an Administration characterized by a politics of cynicism and division, one that has consistently placed itself and its ideology above the law. This is exactly the kind of politics we must change so we can begin restoring the American people's faith in a government that puts the country's progress ahead of the bitter partisanship of recent years."
Is it just me, or does Obama's description cover Marc Rich just as much as Scooter Libby?
Clinton's statement: "Today's decision is yet another example that this Administration simply considers itself above the law. This case arose from the Administration's politicization of national security intelligence and its efforts to punish those who spoke out against its policies. Four years into the Iraq war, Americans are still living with the consequences of this White House's efforts to quell dissent. This commutation sends the clear signal that in this Administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice."
Much more narrowly worded, you'll notice.
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(4)
09:55:35 AM,
Tuesday 3 July 2007
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Pants with built-in pedometers. I refuse to understand why this makes less sense than, say, cameraphones.
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(2)
01:33:22 PM,
Monday 2 July 2007
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Trash trucks sound very much like delivery trucks. One fleet of diesel engines to bring the stuff, another to haul it away.
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10:30:35 AM,
Monday 2 July 2007
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site & script courtesy of Moss
