The ultimate blog post (Digg).
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Torture and civilization
“Ensuring torture is totally banned under American law is a touchstone issue that defines our very civilization, to include its continued embrace of Englightenment values, a belief in progress in the face of adversity, and ensuring that our most odious enemies are not successful in having us sully our human rights leadership, one so hard earned through the Cold War.”
—Greg Djerejian, Neoconservative, “Has Waterboarding been banned?”
Split the bill
Blake sent me this article from the Onion: “Caltech Physicists Successfully Split The Bill.”
The Starship Zend-erprise
Hello
Thank you again for submitting a proposal for speaking at the Zend/PHP Conference in October. We have had an overwhelming response to our Call for Papers and, as a result, have had a difficult time in deciding which proposals to accept. After examining your proposal carefully, I am writing to inform you that it was not accepted in the first review cycle. However, we are placing it on a waiting list for further consideration.
…
Most importantly, thank you for your patience as we investigate expanding the Conference schedule and thank you very much for submitting a proposal to speak at the Conference.
Ahh, the standard rejection letter! But how I got it is anything but standard and that’s what I want to muse about in this article.Continue reading
Tony Blair exits
The New York Times had an interesting article on the Labour Party and Tony Blair.
Apparently as Tony Blair gets pushed out, Gordon Brown will be replacing him. The article then talks about the uneasy alliance between the two:
The moon… hypersaturated
I noticed on digg an interesting thread on the color of the moon with an amazing photo taken by Noel Carboni:
Three new dSLRs and “camera feel”
David Pogue writes an article about three new dSLRs that I’ve been talking around in this blog.
They are:
- The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi ($800) with Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens ($900);
- the Nikon D80 ($1000) with AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED kit lens ($1300);
- hte Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1 with Leica D Vario-Elmarit 14-50mm f/2.8-3.5 O.I.S. kit lens ($2000)
I love the article because there is little bias and he explains the differences in terms most people can understand. (I delve into the technical too much to be a Dave Pogue.)Continue reading
Patriotism is not blind devotion
“Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.
A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience…”
—Rocky Anderson, Mayor of Salt Lake City
This is in response to Rumsfeld’s speech in that same city equating dissent with appeasing the Nazi’s. To understand the context, Salt Lake City is the capital and largest city in the state of Utah which is the most pro-Bush state in the union and one of the few places where he still enjoys a positive approval rating. This city and state is also the home town of my mother’s family.
Continue reading
Aryan Fever
Someone from Taiwan told me their sister isn’t digging some guy because he’s Asian and she’s not into Asians.
This, of course, reminded me of “Yellow Fever.” What’s weird about that mockumentary is that it isn’t about “Yellow Fever” since that’s when a white guy is digging some East Asian girl.
What do you call it when a asian girl only goes out with white guys?
I asked my good friend Redgee for what they call it—after all, if anyone should know it should be a Filipino. 😀
First he suggested “twinkie” but that wasn’t quite right. He didn’t know so he coined the term “Aryan Fever.”
Continue reading