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09 Nov 2010 — Breaking in my sleep

Mishnah Bava Kamma 2:6: “A human being is always mu‘ad [strictly liable; see Exodus 21:36], whether he behaves accidentally, deliberately, awake, or asleep….”

25 Oct 2010 — Ele-mentally

For once in, like, decades, I have actually watched the premiere (or at least, the US network premiere) of a TV show at the same time as the rest of the world, instead of watching it on DVD months or years later. So, a few quick reactions to Sherlock, to share with fellow fans:

21 Sep 2010 — Down and out in Chicago

Recommended reading: Brad DeLong summons the waaaambulance for a poor, beleaguered University of Chicago professor, with an annual household income of over $450,000 and “less than a few hundred dollars per month of discretionary income”. This fellow is living so close to the financial edge that he fears that Obama’s proposed tax increase will have a catastrophic effect on his lifestyle, not to mention the lifestyles of his gardener and house cleaner.

16 Sep 2010 — Better minstrelsy, please

Like all right-thinking (left-thinking?) people, I am shocked—shocked!—that the National Federation of Republican Women, at their Board of Directors’ meeting in South Carolina, would show off people dressed like this. I mean… I mean… the event where these pictures were taken was advertised as “A Southern Experience”, and the president of the SC state Senate (the guy in the Confederate general’s uniform) praised “the historical accuracy of the performers”, but that guy with the straw hat isn’t holding the washboard correctly!

14 Sep 2010 — We can, we can, we can, we can, demolish forty [REDACTED]

The newspaper of record has revealed an embarrassing correlation:

08 Sep 2010 — The Great White North, with postmodern zombies

They say in Multiculturally Sensitive Writers’ School that it’s A Good Thing to go beyond generic raceless people who will default to generic white in the average reader’s mind. Instead, wherever possible, give your characters ethnicities, nationalities, etc., and think about how their upbringing as African-American, or Irish, or Lithuanian-Jewish, or whatever, has molded them. If you make the effort to develop your characters along these dimensions, your stories will be the better for them.

07 Sep 2010 — We’ve been together for ages

31 Aug 2010 — It sucks to be a predator

And you’ve got people. Billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. —Spike

24 Aug 2010 — Dead to rights

The City of Minneapolis will pay $165,000 to seven zombies, and their attorney, to settle a civil-rights lawsuit. The seven, during a protest against “mindless” consumerism, had been “walking in a stiff, lurching fashion and carrying four bags of sound equipment to amplify music from an iPod when they were arrested by police who said they were carrying equipment that simulated ‘weapons of mass destruction.’” Rather than defend the police’s brain-dead judgement in Federal court, the city agreed to settle.

18 Aug 2010 — Atlas mooched

Using a GPS logger—that is to say, using a satellite network that is funded by American taxpayers and available free of charge to everyone all over the world—some chap named Nick Newcomen has created an advertisement for Ayn Rand’s books.

03 Aug 2010 — Translation from PR-speak to English of the Anti-Defamation League’s “Statement On Islamic Community Center Near Ground Zero”

We regard freedom of religion as a cornerstone of the American democracy, and that freedom must include the right of all Americans – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths – to build community centers and houses of worship.

28 Jul 2010 — The call of cult-calling

The Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee, while responding to a constituent’s concern about a Muslim community center being built in Murfreesboro, remarked that while he is all in favor of freedom of religion, “you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult, whatever you want to call it”. As others have already pointed out, this is free propaganda for al-Qaeda.

27 Jul 2010 — Wanted: digital passports

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, bemoaning how CNN requires you to sign away your digital soul in order to post a comment on its Web site, remarks:

26 Jul 2010 — I am not hip enough to come up with a proper headline to this post

Shaul Magid,¹ reviewing a sociological study of ArtScroll, remarks:

25 Jul 2010 — One out of every four sentient species is a victim of domestic violence

I have seen various discussions online about colonialism, and of course, these make me think about colonialism in SF—especially the kind where our planet becomes someone else’s colony.

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