Month: September 2003

Clarification

Ogged, from unfogged.com, has asked what I meant by terrifying and hilarious. I meant that it covers issues which are profoundly serious, and yet also laughably strange or absurd. For example, this post on baseball commissioner Bud Selig which points out how stupid leaders could actually be useful when seeking transparency in government.

Ogged is also exploring the gay marriage thing, trying to figure out if there is some sort of legitimate argument against it. I’m curious to find out where that leads us– perhaps to some sort of intelligent debate on the subject?

Milestones

My RCE2 manual is now longer than 100 pages. That means I’ve done a lot of work recently.

I have driven over 100 miles on my Honda Ruckus (mine’s in black, not red). That’s pretty far, at least for a dedicated urban snob like me. It did that on a little over a gallon of gas.

If you search for evolution on Google, you’ll find two funny things: Ximian Evolution is the second-most-popular kind of Evolution. This means that my employer is successful and popular. And there’s an ad for BibleHelp.org promoting absolutist literal biblical interpretations, which means… well, I’m not sure what it means. I’m not as surprised about the literalism as I am about the incredibly narrow definitions of Christianity– they refer to everyone who has a slightly different interpretation of the bible as “Christian” in quotation marks.

Terrifying, Hilarious, Etc.

Newsskim and Ironic Times are both funny news sites. Have I linked Ironic Times before? It’s more sarcastic than ironic, to be honest, although a lot of news these days does seem to be ironic, even without any commentary. UnfOgged for example, is alternately… well, terrifying and hilarious. Like these SCARY RABBITS.

I admit it. I agree with Dubya on something. He’s done something right: signed a bill proclaiming that prison rape is bad and should be stopped. Just goes to show you, he feels your pain, as he brutally sodomizes our economy and our futures.

Disney Freaks. Cory Doctorow defends them, and he has a good point that they’re not any worse than any other sorts of fans, obsessives or generalized otaku– ski bums, say, or baseball-card collectors. They enjoy it, they’re independent adults, and why the hell not? On the other hand, it’s just a little bit icky for reasons I’m not very good at articulating.

Assorted Update

I find I’ve been blogging and exercising less, and interacting with humans more, recently. Probably a good thing, despite the imperceptible loss of muscle tone. So, assorted links: Software development life cycle diagram. For anyone in software, it rings all too true.

NationMaster stats toy. Awesome power!

Now, I’d like to comment on Rasmussen’s note that many religious people do indeed object to non-Christian teachers, and that’s why they have religious schools. My reaction of course is “exactly!” If you have a particular religious agenda (No non-Christians in role-model positions, say) then you should have a religious school, not a legislative movement to impose your religious views on the secular majority.

Now, is there an empirically demonstrable danger to safety and well-being that stems from having homosexuals employed by our state school systems? I doubt it. Iain Murray looks into it further and comes to no conclusion at all.