But...that makes sense!

What if financial vendors were paid in part with the very things they were selling? Think they'd be a little more likely to make sure their products were useful? Joe Nocera of the NY Times suggests a way to restore trust in the financial industry.

Vote yes on 985!

Washington Think Tank Gives Thumbs Up to Traffic Reduction Measure

Speed does NOT kill

Fast And Safe :: Facts & Myths - Speed Limits

A comprehensive study shows that increasing speed limits actually reduces the number of crashes and injuries on a given stretch of road, thereby creating a net positive for society. Basically, the people who are going to cause a crash are going to do it regardless of the speed limit, and having a higher speed limit appears to let everyone else just get out of their way faster. :)

Finally, a sensible response to the Global Climate Change mayhem

Don't fight, adapt, urges a group of signatories who ought to know. Read this for a concise list of why people concerned about unnatural global climate change are wasting their worry.

Scientific proof that I need a wife

(Where by "wife" I mean "spouse who stays home and takes care of things," or perhaps "maid and personal assistant.") This study finds that women do more housework after getting married and men do less. It could be because on average, there are still more stay-at-home wives than husbands, or it could be that married people just care more. In the last ten years, people of both genders who were single and in their 20s in the 1990s did more housework in 2005 if they were married than if they stayed single. Fascinating.

Blood-powered electronic tattoos

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Man, I'm so weirded out I can't even decide whether I hate it. I used to joke that it would be nice to power cell phones, etc., on people-energy, because then we could eat more, but I think I'm changing my mind. It was a JOKE!

Beware the cute!

Holly, this is for you! ;) Kittens cover Fatboy Slim. Literal cute overload.

A Christian looks at Harry Potter rationally

Yes, I'm biased in favor of Harry Potter because I loved the books. But here is an insightful article on the Christian world-view in Harry Potter. I still don't agree with all of Rowling's opinions, but hey, I don't have to. :) (I especially appreciate that even when Christian groups were decrying her work as pagan, she didn't feel the need to justify herself, and so she could save the end of the story.)

Blood Roses?

I already felt guilty about diamonds, and now roses have now been added to the "Feel guilty about this" set of romantic luxuries. Okay, they don't get people killed (directly), but Connect the Dots: Where Did Those Roses Come From? is a quick story on the pesticides and woker abuse perpetuated by the "floriculture" industry.

I suppose it's just another lesson on the American Culture of Excess: there's no cute tradition that we can't overmarket and turn into a burden. (Don't get me started on where the diamond tradition came from -- it's media and elitist manipulation of the worst kind.) But the tradition still exists; it's too late to undo my romantic conditioning. I also happen to really like roses as flowers, not just as symbols of romance (not every girl does). Good thing there's an up-and-coming "fair trade" rose market.

Self-cleaning litter

A toilet-shaped self-cleaning litter box? Hm. I don't know if my cat would fall for it, or if it's worth $300 not to scoop litter (plus always having to buy more sani-solution).

Interesting...

According to this quiz, I'm a bit confused. Oo, pretty rainbow! I was kinda planning to vote for John McCain anyway. Nice to know at least one anonymous internet quiz agrees with me. :)

71% John McCain
68% Mitt Romney
64% Bill Richardson
63% Tom Tancredo
62% Barack Obama
61% Chris Dodd
61% Hillary Clinton
59% John Edwards
58% Mike Huckabee
56% Fred Thompson
50% Rudy Giuliani
50% Ron Paul
47% Joe Biden
35% Dennis Kucinich
35% Mike Gravel

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Beware of Gift Cards?

So a while ago, I got a "Liberty" gift card for $25. It was one of those Visa gift cards that's good anywhere and acts just like a Visa debit card. I never remembered spending it all, so after I found it while cleaning out my purse today, I checked my balance, and it was $0. I was about to shrug and just throw it away, when I noticed they had a transaction history option online. So I looked it up, and I had spent $13 at Borders the month I got it, and at some point thereafter had been charged $2.50 a month until the balance was $0, at which point the card had been terminated. A closer look at the terms and conditions of the card revealed that, indeed, they do charge a $2.50/month fee, "waived for six months." What?! You're stealing my money! And it's my fault, because I didn't check the terms and conditions of a gift card?! That's just dirty rotten. I'm sure the people who bought it for me didn't know about that, either. These people must make money hand over fist. How mean.

Unfortunate Pun of the Week

Painful grammatical error. Maybe online advertisers should consider proofreading their ads. But then, what would we laugh at?

Somebody send the Spears family a PSA

Jamie-Lynn Spears is pregnant.
Has this family never heard of birth control? I hear you can get it free from Planned Parenthood. Seriously, I do respect their decisions to keep the babies (refraining from quality-of-life jokes here), and I'm sure they're hardly the only family to which this happens, but man... I really feel sorry for them, too. I hope they can get it together.

Great website!

Is it Christmas?

What do I get now?

This comic addresses one of the big problems most people should have with the kind of Christianity that's generally accepted. Brian McLaren addresses that in The Secret Message of Jesus: eternal life starts now, and we start living out the joy of relationship with God here on earth by living according to Jesus' message. Interesting stuff. And, of course, just a cute comic.

Living the Bible literally

This guy tried Following Every Rule for One Year. It's a great article and I bet the book would be interesting, too. Some highlights:

NEWSWEEK: It’s been a little over a year since your experiment ended and you shaved your beard. How’s the life of sin?
A. J. Jacobs: It’s all right. I miss my sin-free life, but I guess I was never sin free. I was able to cut down on my coveting maybe 40 percent, but I was still a coveter. ...

I'm glad he recognizes that.

What, if any, rules are you still following?
I’m not Gandhi or Angelina Jolie, but I made some strides. ...

Wait, what? When did Angelina Jolie replace Mother Theresa as the epitome of righteousness in popular culture?

Most of the religious figures you met with seemed very willing to help you with your quest. Were you afraid anyone would be offended by the idea of you doing this as a commercial project, or see it as a gimmick?
Yes, I thought I would encounter that. I didn’t encounter it that much, and I don’t know why. Maybe because I went in really curious, I didn’t go in to mock religion. It was much more a journey to understand. There are parts of the book where I take the Bible literally and show that that is not a good way to read the Bible. ...

An excellent thing to realize. However, file under missing the point:

Many women say some passages in the Bible can seem pretty misogynistic. Was that a problem for your relationship?
It was. Parts of the Bible say that the man is the head of the household and should make the decisions, which did not translate into reality in our household. She found that a disturbing part of religion. It was something I really had to wrestle with. One of the lessons of the book is, there is some picking and choosing in following the Bible, and I think that’s OK.

Even my friends who believe the man is the head of the household don't say that equates to him making the decisions. AJ then jumps to saying, hey, it's okay to pick and choose from the Bible. I almost completely disagree with that, but it's definitely a frequent result of misunderstanding passages. "How could God say that? I can't follow that! I guess I just won't do it. Well, if I'm not doing that, why do I do this other thing?" All the more reason not to misapply passages, but I'll leave that soapbox for another day.

Couldn't have said it better myself

Harry Potter and the Christian Critics

When I finished Deathly Hallows, I felt a little guilty for having skipped church to do it (lest someone at church give away the ending). But my friend pointed out that it was like I had gone to church, because it was such a great message.

R.I.P. Hyphens

Thousands of hyphens perish in new Shorter OED. A love post to my grammar friends. :)

It's sprrrreading!

Even flickr has caught the International Talk Like A Pirate wave!



Update! It gets better. Scroll down and choose among languages "Arr!"


And Rhapsody has a Talk Like A Pirate Day mix! And Tom Smith released a song, "Talk Like A Pirate Day." ("That time in September when sea dogs remember that grown-ups still know how ta play!")