Category: Thoughts

MIT and BBC World Service symposium on forced labor in the global economy, Saturday May 14. Sadly, it begins well before noon, so I doubt I’ll make it.

The PR flak famous for representing dictators has killed himself — apparently by jumping from a castle. Nice touch, there. I’d like to see the suicide note of a man who used to say shame is for sissies.

Sometimes, as we all know, spam approaches art. Sometimes, as in the annual scrapple-carving competition, it is deliberate.

In this case, perhaps it is or perhaps not. It certainly goes on at length about Cat Stevens, a.k.a. Yusuf Islam. Anyway, I got a couple copies of this today, and thought you might enjoy it.
Continue reading “Invitating you to Truthfulness”

Sometimes, as we all know, spam approaches art. Sometimes, as in the annual scrapple-carving competition, it is deliberate.

In this case, perhaps it is or perhaps not. It certainly goes on at length about Cat Stevens, a.k.a. Yusuf Islam. Anyway, I got a couple copies of this today, and thought you might enjoy it.
Continue reading “Invitating you to Truthfulness”

Following the announcement of a Unitarian Jihad for moderation and sensibility, you can find the Unitarian Jihad name generator and of course, according to your preference, you may also use the first reformed Unitarian Jihad name generator. Both are optional. You may use your current name or invent one of your own choosing.

More seriously, check out the National Day of Reason, an alternative to the National day of Prayer or the National Day of Human Sacrifice, where we cut out the hearts of children and burn them in offering, in the hopes that our agriculture and monetary policies will be fruitful.

We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture,” said pastor Ray Mummert, who is apparently neither intelligent nor educated. He seems to have the same definitions of words as the Heritage Foundation, where “an increasing number” can still be 0 and “evidence” may or may not imply the word “fabricated.” Yes, we are under attack by the intelligent and educated. We need to defend our freedom, our freedom from reality.

Ari Fleischer claims that government shouldn’t solve problems, that examples are bad illustrations of statistical trends, and that the unemployment rate isn’t a good measure of the economy. Wow, that’s brilliant maneuvering there, buddy. Let’s see who believes you… Oh, wait, you’re talking to lapdogs. Everyone.

EDS claims the Linux environment lacks securifying. And ZDNet publishes the press release as an article. Yay, that’s easy. If you say it enough, maybe it will become true. In fact, I’m pretty sure that my environment does lack both securification and stetic.

People were shocked when the government started releasing B-Roll press releases as news, but to me it’s just part of the “corporate presidency.” That means you get corporate-style PR, which of course includes prepackaged news stories given to the local news channels that can’t afford to produce their own real news, so they run this as filler. It goes hand in hand with corporate-style ethics.

When trying to convince someone of something, use the following format:
Tell them what you’re going to tell them.
Tell them.
Tell them what you just told them.

In other words, audiences learn from repitition. In Spanish they say “con sangre, entra la letra,” or “learning comes in with blood,” meaning that you have to beat the lesson into people.

So the literal beating doesn’t work these days but you can still hit them with your endlessly repeated message.

Yesterday I took a picture of Ming the Merciless but I didn’t hit “Save” on the phone so I lost it. So no pictures of Ming finishing his meal and going over the evening’s reciepts.

Instead, I direct you to this incredibly depressing portrait of celebrity and drug abuse.

Last night, I woke up screaming. The dream began with having to get to the theatre for opening night of my role as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. I had to be there early because I had never read the play, so I had a lot to rehearse. First I had to get dressed and shave. Shaving took forever. My face seemed impossibly wide, and every time I turned my head I’d find a new spot of thick, gnarly whiskers I’d overlooked. The razor was dull, I was out of shaving cream. My beard extended all the way to the back of my neck. I cut myself. I brushed my teeth and got toothpaste everywhere. I went to get dressed, but the good white shirt I had was dirty, so I had to wear one that was sort of ragged and old and not the right color. Where was my tie? I buttoned my shirt wrong. Every button took forever to do, my fingers were completely numb, I slowly buttoned each button again, and it was wrong again. That’s when I became totally enraged and started yelling and woke myself, and Bookdwarf, and the cats.
“What’s wrong?”
“I couldn’t get my shirt buttoned right.”