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America's moral values | forrestAwk! | edward
Two maps | edward
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Anyone Else | edward
off to work in the Sunshine State | fincher
just a note from snowy boston to wish a happy diwali and an early eid mubarak to all. it's nice that both hindu and muslim holidays fall on the same weekend this year. and thanks to the other best college ever for inviting me to a panel yesterday and paying for my flight home! red sox congrats adorn the streets, snow is falling, and friends and family await. almost makes one forget the doom that has just begun.
With all the talk of the new Firefox release, my favorite German satirical website posted a link to this website with pictures of firefoxes in their natural habitat. They're so cute!!!
New Kennedy School working paper (see article; PDF of report) reveals:
Terrorism is correlated with intermediate levels of political freedom (e.g. countries transitioning to/from totalitarianism), rather than high levels of freedom or totalitarianism.
Terrorism is not highly correlated with poverty.
Terrorism is correlated with geographical areas difficult to access (e.g. mountains, jungles).
Well, Sigourney breezed into town Tuesday night, leaving a large wake of fun behind. We hit Gordon B, then a little DG, then a little Raku...then...well, let's just say that yesterday was a little tough to slog through.
I've noticed, as the years pass, that the number of friends one can just be natural around tends to decrease at the same rate the number of friends one knows professionally increases. Hence, when I moved to the city there were a number of people I knew I could just hang out with at their house, but not as many I'd go to a nice dinner with. The sheer amount of inevitable movement from place to place has moved many people out of DC, but I now find myself with many more people I'd go to dinner with, and yet not want to visit their house.
It's not a bad situation, just a different one. A reprioritization; a new hierarchy.
Regardless, Sigourney will always be top tier.
Yesterday, I managed to work like mad on fifty different projects at work. Hence, the lack of posting.
Today, I encourage everyone to pop in your copy of Patton and properly respect the people who have fought to give us our freedoms. They lost limbs so that idiots can stand in the street and say whatever they want to. Regardless of who is in power at the particular moment, I'm proud to be an American for that reason alone. What other nation's citizens can say that?
Chances are in the past few days you've written some angry email about how the hell Republicans have the right to claim the "moral values" high ground when we're the ones who actually care about, you know, CARING FOR THE POOR and FREEDOM.
Now's your chance to tell the world and even be published in the NYTimes...Submit your rants and diatribes to MyMoralValues.com. The best ones will be published in a big ad in the New York Times in two weeks.
My favorite so far, from Jon in Indiana: "Morality is a government that takes care of its people, instead of scaring them into submission. This is not a moral government."
Had I been writing “Pop Smatters” this summer, The Russian Futurist’s “Precious Metals,” from Let’s Get Ready to Crumble, would have been, hands-down, a Track You Should Be Listening To Right Now. (And yes, the disc came out even earlier, but these recommendations are subject to the vagaries of fate, my tastes, and especially what makes it out of the WMUC offices.) I still recommend you check it out, or dig up the track’s near-twin and current TYSBLTRN, “The Shore,” off The Cansecos’s self-titled record. The M.O. is the same: programmed beats, keyboard synths, various loops, all washing out flattened vocals that are consequently all the more intriguing for their dwelling just out of reach. And so one has little choice but to simply hum along, even while one puzzles about what a bunch of Canadians are doing singing “J to the A M A —I—C A / All together now” in the first place. (Listen to “The Shore” here or request it here.)
While you’re online, I heartily recommend the site for Sandstrom Design. Be sure to check out their “Salute to the Greatest Designs of All Time” (regarding the Ship in a Bottle: “Slightly edged out the message in a bottle mostly because it’s a ship, and it’s in a bottle”) and “Color of the Month” (July’s was Department of Motor Vehicle Brown). Amazing copy and understated design.
It's times like these that I look back at the word to see what it might say:
And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.
from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15
Pretty apt, eh?
Well, they finally did it.
Making my morning even better, (after last night's epic battle with Microsoft came to an end after 4 weeks) today Firefox went gold. A 1.0 release. Nice.
All you windows users can just go here to pick up an executable installer of the latest version.
If you haven't tried Firefox yet, you haven't experienced the web the way it was meant to be: fast and portable.
Three ways to have a good morning:
- Eat lots of bacon for breakfast.
- Get a ride to work.
- Notice the skies are bright blue.
Combine those three with an ice-cold beverage and you're well on your way toward a great day. And that's even before I realized Sigourney was visiting. Hooray!
These numbers are simply unbelievable.
Say it with me...if they pull a knife, we pull a gun. If they send one of ours to the hospital, we send one of theirs to the morgue. Hell, we own Chicago now, don't we?
This "we're nicer than them" business has to end. Today.
Update: the D-trip responds to this. Bottom line: I'd rather be known as a member of the party that plays hardball than the one that is warm and fuzzy. We don't need plumbers, we need soldiers. I always defend the DCCC against nay-sayers, so I'm not criticizing them; I'm criticizing the mindset of the party in general that thinks winning the women's vote involves touchy-feely slogans or winning the men's vote involves hunting. Americans are good judges of character, and they can tell when a candidate is "tough" fairly well. Being tough means calling things like they are, not being political 100% of the time.
Saturday I enjoyed the incredibly great weather by roaming around g-town and discovering that every single store I couldn't afford to purchase anything in was having a sale. I ended up just picking up a couple of items that, when I returned home, turned out to be not what I expected. Regardless, good deals overall. Did I mention the blue skies and perfect weather? Oh, well...it was wonderful even if I did.
In the evening, I managed to see the greatest soccer game ever with Fincher. After two incredible halves full of amazing shots from both sides, two scoreless overtimes, and a tied shootout, it went to golden goal. United prevailed. The fans went wild. You had to be there to witness the madness.
Like every perfect evening, Saturday ended with some sushi.
On Sunday, I plowed through a nautical novel, soaked myself in rays and caught a film in the evening. I'd post a review now, but I'm busy working on the coding for the next major addition to the site. So be prepared!
can anyone locate a copy of the electoral college map by population just shown by tim russert on the meet the press?