« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
September 30, 2005
Left behind.
So: at a recent family get together I found out that one of my cousins is a big fan of the Left Behind books. Now, our family many not know sanity very well, but we’re all kinda good at knowing books. I couldn’t explain to her why they were terrible. Fortunately, the Slactivist can. He’s going through the Left Behind books page by agonizingly poorly writing page, and telling us what’s wrong with them. here's today’s installment...
Here, then, are the stories our intrepid reporter is following, listed according to his sense of priority:1. Suspicious suicide of Princeton roommate
2. Meeting of Jewish nationalists
3. Meeting of Orthodox Jews
4. Parliament of World Religions conference
5. Global cataclysm, mass disappearances, the end of the world.
The rest of today’s article and the archives are pretty good too...
Posted by Andrew at 12:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The American Web
America needs to give up Internet control
I have this general feeling that the US does a better job running the Web than an international coordinating body would. This does not mean that I am correct...
What bothers me is this: if the Internet is a tool which can be used to further American interests, and if the world is now afraid of letting that tool stay in American hands, we’ve screwed up...
What is really worrisome is that it is Republican immoral policies which have caused the world to want to rip this tool away from us. Once again the American Right has damaged American strength...
Posted by Andrew at 11:57 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 29, 2005
God of Gaps...
Mind the Gaps - Intelligent design as an answer to all life's great conundrums. By Dahlia Lithwick
I am sure Ms. Lithwick esq is familiar with the concept of the “god of the gaps” theory. For those who aren’t Religious Studies minors, this theory holds that God is wherever human intelligence can’t (yet) penetrate. Why does a rainbow appear after a storm? God is giving us a sign of his covenant. Why do we have fossil records of animals and plants which no longer exist? Satan God is testing our faith...
Interestingly, my theology professor specifically counsels against the “God of the gaps” theory, saying that it A) denies the deeper grandeur of God acting in the human heart, and B) as science progresses and more is known, it makes God smaller. Of course this very fear of a shrinking God is what is causing the Intelligent Design people to be so vocal-- and what makes their theory so very unconstitutional in the public classrooms...
Posted by Andrew at 04:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 28, 2005
Me Politically, apparently
I do tend to think this has me pegged a bit low on the capitalist scale.
| You are a Social Liberal (86% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (36% permissive) You are best described as a:
Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test |
Posted by Andrew at 11:20 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Buy a banned book!
Actually, these books are merely frequently "Challenged " And I admit that I did not like many of the books which ended up on this list. Still, there is something fundamentally unAmerican about wanting to keep a book out of someone's hands. So I've spent some time compiling a list of links to both BN.com and Amazon.com. If you want to buy a book or three from this list, I recommend doing so. "Censor" was a part of the Roman Republic America happily did not adopt...
BTW: even if you don't want any of these books for yourself, buying one and donating it to a library will get you directly into heaven...
Also, if you spend more than US$25, shipping is free...
1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz Amazon
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite Amazon
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Amazon
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier Amazon
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark TwainAmazon
6. Of Mice and Men by John SteinbeckAmazon
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. RowlingAmazon
8. Forever by Judy BlumeAmazon
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine PatersonAmazon
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds NaylorAmazon (one of the series)
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea NewmanAmazon
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher CollierAmazon
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. SalingerAmazon
14. The Giver by Lois LowryAmazon
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie HarrisAmazon
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. StineAmazon
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton PeckAmazon
18. The Color Purple by Alice WalkerAmazon
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. AuelAmazon
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine PatersonAmazon
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’EngleAmazon
23. Go Ask Alice by AnonymousAmazon
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean MyersAmazon
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice SendakAmazon
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry AllardAmazon
27. The Witches by Roald DahlAmazon
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles SilversteinAmazon
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois LowryAmazon
30. The Goats by Brock ColeAmazon
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark MathabaneAmazon
32. Blubber by Judy BlumeAmazon
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois DuncanAmazon
34. Halloween ABC by Eve MerriamAmazon
35. We All Fall Down by Robert CormierAmazon
36. Final Exit by Derek HumphryAmazon
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret AtwoodAmazon
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead GeorgeAmazon
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni MorrisonAmazon
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda MadarasAmazon
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper LeeAmazon
42. Beloved by Toni MorrisonAmazon
43. The Outsiders by S.E. HintonAmazon
44. The Pigman by Paul ZindelAmazon
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry AllardAmazon
46. Deenie by Judy BlumeAmazon
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel KeyesAmazon
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy GardenAmazon
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis SacharAmazon
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin SchwartzAmazon
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel SilversteinAmazon
52. Brave New World by Aldous HuxleyAmazon
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)Amazon
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna ColeAmazon
55. Cujo by Stephen KingAmazon
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald DahlAmazon
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William PowellAmazon
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell PomeroyAmazon
59. Ordinary People by Judith GuestAmazon
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton EllisAmazon
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda MadarasAmazon
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy BlumeAmazon
63. Crazy Lady by Jane ConlyAmazon
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris CrutcherAmazon
65. Fade by Robert CormierAmazon
66. Guess What? by Mem FoxAmazon
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel AllendeAmazon
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline CooneyAmazon
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt VonnegutAmazon
70. Lord of the Flies by William GoldingAmazon
71. Native Son by Richard WrightAmazon
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy FridayAmazon
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel CohenAmazon
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. AnayaAmazon
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter MayleAmazon
77. Carrie by Stephen KingAmazon
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy BlumeAmazon
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane BauerAmazon
80. Arizona Kid by Ron KoertgeAmazon
81. Family Secrets by Norma KleinAmazon *
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette ColeAmazon
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen KingAmazon
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark TwainAmazon
85. Song of Solomon by Toni MorrisonAmazon
86. Always Running by Luis RodriguezAmazon
87. Private Parts by Howard SternAmazon
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin HanfordAmazon
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette GreeneAmazon
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen BannermanAmazon
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken FollettAmazon
92. Running Loose by Chris CrutcherAmazon
93. Sex Education by Jenny DavisAmazon*
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette GreeneAmazon*
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell PomeroyAmazon*
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas RockwellAmazon
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis RobertsAmazon
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley SnyderAmazon
99. The Terrorist by Caroline CooneyAmazon
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher CollierAmazon
Asterisks indicate a book that is out of print. Which probably means the ban was effective...
Caveat:
I work for Barnes and Noble. That’s why they are listed first...
Posted by Andrew at 03:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 27, 2005
This means war!
Bestseller in Mideast: Fulla "Barbie" With a Prayer Mat
Say what you will about Barbie, she’s an all-American babe. She and her friends come in every shade and hue that human skin comes in, she has every job a human being can possibly think of-- she’s an astronaut house mom for goodness sake! She is not defined by her job or her man (Ken, rather is defined by her), but rather by the aspirations of the little girl playing with her. Those hopes and dreams are-- or can be-- as endless as the American dream itself...
And now we have this... thing. This “Barbie for parents who want their child to have no future”. About the only thing of the American doll they kept were her outlandish proportions. Pfhaw. The fact that crushing the dreams of little girls is seen by Fundamentalists Muslims as a good thing is terrifying. Crush Fulla, win the war...
Posted by Andrew at 11:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 25, 2005
Why video games were invented
KSDK NewsChannel 5 - Where The News Comes First - Surfing Mice
It's been Willmott's goal since childhood to teach water sports to mice."It's something we did as a kid, we had no XBox, no Playstation when we were young, so if I wanted to have fun we had to use our imaginations," says Wilmott.
Does anyone else think it odd that KSDK is "where the news comes first", and yet they’re covering this story?
Via Byzantium Shores
Posted by Andrew at 07:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 23, 2005
Geeky tomfoolery
Massachusetts verdict: MS Office format's out
It isn’t like I don’t support the State Commonwealth of Massachusetts on this one-- in principle. But there is a long way from principle to reality. The simple fact of the matter is that there are a pair of competing document standards: Microsoft’s “.doc” format, and “OAISIS”. One of these standards is accessible by just about everyone with a computer. The other will start to be used by Massachusetts...
Now, if California, Texas and New York were to join Massachusetts, things might be different. But soon, Mass. Will find themselves creating documents no one else-- including their own citizens-- can read...
Posted by Andrew at 10:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 18, 2005
Go Aggies!
Stanford stunned by UC Davis in Harris' home opener
"We always felt confident," Smith said. "I don't know what they said at halftime, but we just saw that small opening and it was enough. ... I knew if we got the ball back in our desperation offense, we could make the plays. It seemed like we always do."
Posted by Andrew at 02:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 15, 2005
Hamlet Text Adventure!
Posted by Andrew at 11:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Holy single point of Failure batman!
Wired News: Dutch Treat: Personal Database
This isn’t a bad idea, but putting every piece of information on one person in one database creates a huge target. They better have people monitoring it constantly...
Posted by Andrew at 08:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 11, 2005
Remember the World Trade Center
It has been 1461 days since over thirty-five hundred Americans lost their lives one fine Tuesday morning. In those fourteen hundred sixty one days, the man who masterminded that attack has since gone on to mastermind at least a pair of other attacks-- and he still walks free...
I still mourn the World Trade Center. Not a week goes by when I don’t think about it. And every time I do, I get just a little bit upset that Osama bin Laden is a free man...
Posted by Andrew at 04:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Attention Bibliophiles!
Cataloguing my library doesn't sound like a lot of fun. But I do want to know how many books I have, what kinds of books I have, and it would be nice to know what kind of condition they’re in. Also, a community of other users who share my interests would be able to recommend books to me. So, take a look at Library Thing. Join today-- the first 200 books are free-- and start typing in ISBNs. Oh, and here’s Me. Only a few books so far...
Posted by Andrew at 04:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Zimbabwe: still a mess
BBC NEWS | Africa | Zimbabwe's economy - still on the brink
Posted by Andrew at 12:22 AM | TrackBack
September 10, 2005
How much steel would a claymore weigh if a claymore could weigh more?
Blah. Sorry about that title. Anyway, how much do you think a Medieval sword weighed? 15lbs? 10lbs?
I was suprized to learn that “the average weight of swords from the 10th to the 15th centuries was 1.3 kg [...]”
There’s more...
Posted by Andrew at 03:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 09, 2005
The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
I've been watching DS:9 recently...
Posted by Andrew at 06:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 08, 2005
Oh my Gods!
I wish such things were surprising anymore...
- Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
Why, why why? Why on Earth are trained emergency response personal being so badly misused? Why did the federal government fail so badly? The answer, of course, is that the Federal government has been driven into the ground by a half-decade of republican philosophy...
Posted by Andrew at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 03, 2005
RIP Rehnquist
HoustonChronicle.com - Chief Justice William Rehnquist dies at 80
Posted by Andrew at 11:07 PM | TrackBack
September 02, 2005
Being Poor
Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.
Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.
Being poor is not taking the job because you can't find someone you trust to watch your kids.
Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.
Being poor is not talking to that girl because she'll probably just laugh at your clothes.
There's more...
As it happens, I’ve never been poor. I’ve been am sans cash. But when my car breaks down, I know where I can turn to for an interest-free loan...
This last week, our nation has witnessed the effects of poverty. In New Orleans, the dead, dying and defenseless were those who simply didn’t have enough money to get the fuck out of the way of an oncoming hurricane. It stands as of a judgment against our nation that one would need money to do this, that it takes a US$3,700 limo ride to avoid a natural disaster, that even greyhound was closed. Why is our nation not doing more to prevent the sort of day-to-day squalor that condemned an entire city? What can I, and you, do to alleviate this? I refuse to believe the modern mantra "nothing"...
Posted by Andrew at 10:20 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Martial law is not marital law.
Nor is it rule by Marshal
Posted by Andrew at 02:13 PM | TrackBack
September 01, 2005
Hurricane Katrina
I really ought to mention it, you know? I mean, a city of over one million people uninhabitable for months-- if ever again; not something to ignore. On the other hand, I don’t know what to say. Donate Now...
I suppose we could play the blame game:
For example, in the 1990s, in planning for a New Orleans nightmare scenario, the federal government figured it would pre-deploy nearby ships with pumps to remove water from the below-sea-level city and have hospital ships nearby, said James Lee Witt, who was FEMA director under President Clinton.Federal officials said a hospital ship would leave from Baltimore on Friday.
And we can send out our prayers. I dunno. It all just seems so ineffectual at this point...
Posted by Andrew at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack