Sanely free of McCarthyite calling anyone a "traitor" since 2001!
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I'm underemployed (historically particularly as an editor in book and magazine publishing), recurringly housebound with insanely painful now-sporadic (when I have meds) gout, an enlarged heart, and other health problems, particularly including lifelong recurring severe clinical depression. See here for a major crisis. I'm also sometimes available to some degree as a paid writer or researcher. This is a previous update on my situation & this -- and this from December 19th, 2005 update.
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"The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include With ease, and you beside"
-- Emily Dickinson
"We will pursue peace as if there is no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there is no peace."
-- Yitzhak Rabin
"I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be."
-- Alexander Hamilton
"The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport."
-- Barbara Jordan
"Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to
trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule --
and both commonly succeed, and are right."
-- H. L. Mencken
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
-- William Pitt
"The only completely consistent people are the dead."
-- Aldous Huxley
"I have had my solutions for a long time; but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them."
-- Karl F. Gauss
"Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire,
the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind;
and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise
the improvements of social life."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his
expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were
respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom."
-- Edward Gibbon
"There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify
the evils, of the present times."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Our youth now loves luxuries. They have bad manners, contempt for authority.
They show disrespect for elders and they
love to chatter instead of exercise.
Children are now tyrants, not the servants, of their households. They
no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up their food, and tyrannize
their teachers."
-- Socrates
"Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments."
-- Sidney Hook
"Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness."
-- Sidney Hook
"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.
We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect
disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about particular degrees of interest
and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimized."
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
"Faced with the choice of all the land without a Jewish state or a Jewish state without all the
land, we chose a Jewish state without all the land."
-- David Ben-Gurion
"...the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him
an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this
or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages
to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also
to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing,
with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess
and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminals who do not withstand such
temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the
opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction;
that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion
and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their
ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty,
because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of
judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square
with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil
government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts
against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if
left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has
nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her
natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is
permitted freely to contradict them.
-- Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson
"We don't live just by ideas. Ideas are part of the mixture of customs and practices,
intuitions and instincts that make human life a conscious activity susceptible to
improvement or debasement. A radical idea may be healthy as a provocation;
a temperate idea may be stultifying. It depends on the circumstances. One of the most
tiresome arguments against ideas is that their "tendency" is to some dire condition --
to totalitarianism, or to moral relativism, or to a war of all against all."
-- Louis Menand
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."
-- Dante Alighieri
"He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers."
-- Henry B. Adams
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under a bridge."
-- Anatole France
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
-- Edmund Burke
"Education does not mean that we have become certified experts in business or mining or botany or journalism or epistemology;
it means that through the absorption of the moral, intellectual, and esthetic inheritance of the race we have come to
understand and control ourselves as well as the external world; that we have chosen the best as our associates both in spirit
and the flesh; that we have learned to add courtesy to culture, wisdom to knowledge, and forgiveness to understanding."
-- Will Durant
"Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is
but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest
winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?"
-- Herman Melville
"The most important political office is that of the private citizen."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"It is an error to suppose that books have no influence; it is a slow influence, like flowing water carving out a canyon,
but it tells more and more with every year; and no one can pass an hour a day in the society of sages and heroes without
being lifted up a notch or two by the company he has kept."
-- Will Durant
"When you write, you’re trying to transpose what you’re thinking into something that is less like an annoying drone and more like a piece of music."
-- Louis Menand
"Sex is a continuum."
-- Gore Vidal
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802.
"The sum of our religion is peace and unanimity, but these can scarcely stand unless we define as little as possible,
and in many things leave one free to follow his own judgment, because there is great obscurity in many matters, and
man suffers from this almost congenital disease that he will not give in when once a controversy is started, and
after he is heated he regards as absolutely true that which he began to sponsor quite casually...."
-- Desiderius Erasmus
"Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must disbelieve?"
-- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to N. G. Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller, 1814
"We are told that it is only people's objective actions that matter, and their subjective feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war effort,
are 'objectively' aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of saying this myself more than once. The same argument is applied to Trotskyism. Trotskyists are often credited, at any rate by Communists, with being active and conscious agents of Hitler; but when you point out the many and obvious reasons why this is unlikely to be true,
the 'objectively' line of talk is brought forward again. To criticize the Soviet Union helps Hitler: therefore 'Trotskyism is Fascism'. And when this has been established, the accusation of conscious treachery is usually repeated.
This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it. If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions."
-- George Orwell, "As I Please," Tribune, 8 December 1944
"Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If 'needy' were a turn-on?"
-- "Aaron Altman," Broadcast News
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
-- Lewis Thomas
"To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?"
-- Cicero
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."
-- Samuel Johnson, Life Of Johnson
"Very well, what did my critics say in attacking my character? I must read out their affidavit, so to speak, as though they were my legal accusers: Socrates is guilty of criminal meddling, in that he inquires into things below the earth and in the sky, and makes the weaker argument defeat the stronger, and teaches others to follow his example."
-- Socrates, via Plato, The Republic
"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself."
-- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
"Remember, Robin: evil is a pretty bad thing."
-- Batman
"Being evil is not a full-time job."
-- James Lileks
Gary Farber is now a licensed Double Super-Secret Master Pundit.
He does not always refer to himself in the third person.
Did he mention he was presently single?
The lutefisk is dead. Donate via the donation button on the top left
or I'll shoot this gefilte fish.
No, really, I seriously need the help at present. And I hate asking.
Current Total # of Donations Since Blog Began: 606
Subscribers to date at $5/month: 30 sign-ups; 24 cancellations; Total= 6
Supporter subscribers to date at $25/month: 7 sign-ups; 3 cancellation; Total= 4
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And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
Farber's First Fundamental of Blogging:
If your idea of making an insightful point is to make fun of people's
names, or refer to them by rilly clever labels such as "The Big Me" or "The Shrub,"
chances are high that I'm not reading your blog. The same applies if you refer
to a group of people by disparaging terms such as "the Donks" or "the pals." (Note: I have to say I don't give that much of a damn any more.)
Farber's Second Fundamental of Blogging:
The more interested you are in scoring a "point" for a political "team," a "side," than in exploring the validity or value of an idea, the less interested I am in what you're saying.
(Note: Partially suspended for the Duration. Later note: forget I ever said this.)
Farber's Third Fundamental of Blogging:
If you see a link on another blog, and use it, credit the blog.
Some places I go:
[weblogs, sites, and columns]
People I've known and still miss include Isaac Asimov, rich brown, Charles Burbee, F. M. "Buzz" Busby, Terry Carr, A. Vincent Clarke, George Alec Effinger,
Bill & Sherry Fesselmeyer, George Flynn, John Milo "Mike" Ford. John Foyster, Jay Haldeman, Chuch Harris, Mike Hinge, Lee Hoffman, Terry Hughes, Damon Knight, Ross Pavlac, Bruce Pelz, Elmer Perdue, Tom Perry,
Larry Propp, Bill Rotsler, Art Saha, Bob Shaw, Martin Smith, Harry Stubbs, Bob Tucker, Harry Warner, Jr., Jack Williamson, Walter A. Willis, Susan Wood, Kate Worley, and Roger Zelazny.
It's just a start.
And She of whom I must write someday.
You Like Me, You Really Like Me
...Darn: I saw that Gary had commented on this thread, and thought: oh. my. god. Perfect storm. Unstoppable cannonball, immovable object.
-- Hilzoy
Guessing that Gary is ignorant of anything that has ever been written down is, in my experience, unwise.
Just saying.
-- Hilzoy
Where would the blogosphere be without the Guardian? Guardian fish-barreling is now a venerable tradition. Yet even within this tradition, I don't believe there has ever been a more extensive and thorough essay than this one, from Gary Farber's fine blog. Gary appears to have examined every single thing that Guardian/Observer columnist Mary Ridell has ever written. He ties it all together, reaches inevitable conclusion. An archive can be a weapon.
-- Dr. Frank
Isn't Gary a cracking blogger, apropos of nothing in particular?
-- Alison Scott
I usually read you and Patrick several times a day, and I always get something from them. You've got great links, intellectually honest commentary, and a sense of humor. What's not to like?
-- Ted Barlow
...writer[s] I find myself checking out repeatedly when I'm in the mood to play follow-the-links. They're not all people I agree with all the time, or even most of the time, but I've found them all to be thoughtful writers, and that's the important thing, or should be.
-- Tom Tomorrow
Amygdala - So much stuff it reminds Unqualified Offerings that UO sometimes thinks of Gary Farber as "the liberal Instapundit." -- Jim Henley
I look at it almost every day. I can't follow all the links, but I read most of your pieces. The blog format really seems to suit you. It also suits me; I am not a news junkie, so having smart people like you ferret out the interesting stuff and leave it where I can find it is wonderful.
-- Lydia Nickerson
Gary is certainly a non-idiotarian 'liberal'...
-- Perry deHaviland
...the thoughtful and highly intelligent Gary Farber... My first reaction was that I definitely need to appease Gary Farber of Amygdala, one of the geniuses of our age.
-- Brad deLong
My friend Gary Farber at Amygdala is the sort of liberal for whom I happily give three cheers. [...] Damned incisive blogging....
-- Midwest Conservative Journal
If I ever start a paper, Clueless writes the foreign affairs column, Layne handles the city beat, Welch has the roving-reporter job, Tom Tomorrow runs the comic section (which carries Treacher, of course). MediaMinded runs the slots - that's the type of editor I want as the last line of defense. InstantMan runs the edit page - and you can forget about your Ivins and Wills and Friedmans and Teepens on the edit page - it's all Blair, VodkaP, C. Johnson, Aspara, Farber, Galt, and a dozen other worthies, with Justin 'I am smoking in such a provocative fashion' Raimondo tossed in for balance and comic relief.
Who wouldn't buy that paper? Who wouldn't want to read it? Who wouldn't climb over their mother to be in it?
-- James Lileks
Gary is a perceptive, intelligent, nice guy. Some of the stuff he comes up with is insightful, witty, and stimulating. And sometimes he manages to make me groan.
-- Charlie Stross
One of my issues with many poli-blogs is the dickhead tone so many bloggers affect to express their sense of righteous indignation. Gary Farber's thoughtful leftie takes on the world stand in sharp contrast with the usual rhetorical bullying. Plus, he likes "Pogo," which clearly attests to his unassaultable good taste.
-- oakhaus.com
Gary Farber is a principled liberal....
-- Bill Quick, The Daily Pundit
I read Amygdala...with regularity, as do all sensible websurfers.
-- Jim Henley, Unqualified Offerings
Okay, he is annoying, but he still posts a lot of good stuff.
-- Avedon Carol, The Sideshow
The only trouble with reading Amygdala is that it makes me feel like such a slacker. That Man Farber's a linking, posting, commenting machine, I tell you!
-- John Robinson, Sore Eyes
Jaysus. I saw him do something like this before, on a thread about Israel. It was pretty brutal. It's like watching one of those old WWF wrestlers grab an opponent's
face and grind away until the guy starts crying. I mean that in a nice & admiring way, you know.
-- Fontana Labs, Unfogged
We read you Gary Farber! We read you all the time! Its just that we are lazy with our blogroll. We are so very very lazy. We are always the last ones to the party but we always have snazzy bow ties.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber you are a genius of mad scientist proportions. I will bet there are like huge brains growin in jars all over your house.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber is the hardest working man in show blog business. He's like a young Gene Hackman blogging with his hair on fire, or something.
-- Belle Waring, John & Belle Have A Blog
I bow before the shrillitudinousness of Gary Farber, who has been blogging like a fiend.
-- Ted Barlow, Crooked Timber
Gary Farber only has two blogging modes: not at all, and 20 billion interesting posts a day [...] someone on the interweb whose opinions I can trust....
-- Belle Waring, John & Belle Have A Blog
Gary Farber! Jeez, the guy is practically a blogging legend, and I'm always surprised at the breadth of what he writes about.
-- PZ Meyers, Pharyngula
Gary Farber takes me to task, in a way befitting the gentleman he is.
-- Stephen Green, Vodkapundit
One final observation on the con experience as a whole. At WorldCon, as one of my fellow Clarioneer's observed, there are fans, would be authors, and pros. As Clarion grads, we were effectively classified as pros, albeit at the very bottom of the ladder.
Wow, is that wrong.
Comments noting how self-inflated neo-pros, and most particularly, Clarionites, are probably the groups most made fun of at Worldcon for self-inflated self-appraisals deleted. But the genre is growing.
DRONING ON ABOUT IRAQ: This is some darned interesting scary stuff.
In the waning hours of Operation Desert Fox in 1998, a British missile sheared off the top of a military hangar in southern Iraq and exposed a closely guarded secret. Plainly visible in the rubble was a new breed of Iraqi drone aircraft -- one that defense analysts now believe was specially modified to spread deadly chemicals and germs.
Up to a dozen of the unmanned airplanes were spotted inside the hangar, each fitted with spray nozzles and wing-mounted tanks that could carry up to 80 gallons of liquid anthrax. If flown at low altitudes under the right conditions, a single drone could unleash a toxic cloud engulfing several city blocks, a top British defense official concluded. He dubbed them "drones of death."
ONLINE journals have a bad reputation: emotional train wrecks and narcissistic ramblings plastered on the Web for all to see. But the extraordinary growth of a site called LiveJournal suggests that the genre might be gaining ground in the mainstream.
Ya think?
For many young people, keeping a Web journal is less about soul-searching than about keeping in touch with a circle of friends and perhaps expanding it.
IRAN: HIPPIES, BLOGGERS, ROCKERS, AND ADDICTS are part of the wave of Iran's younger generation, and we get some fascinating detail from this excellent story in the Sunday NY Times Magazine. A few samples:
Wherever there are computers, for example, teenage girls wearing the hejab head covering are bobbing about, headphones clamped to their ears, as they download music from a world away. They are listening to Shakira, watching Eminem videos or instant-messaging boyfriends across town or cyberfriends in Los Angeles.
[...]
According to Hossein Ghazian, director of the polling firm Ayande, 66 percent of Iranians say they want reform, and 23 percent want radical change. Only 11 percent say the system is fine as is.
This is not surprising in the least, but it's stunning.
Asked whether religion and the state should remain intertwined, he says, ''Almost 50 percent said they should not be separated, and 36 percent said they should, but if you compare that to 10 years ago, 70 percent said they should not be separated.''
[...]
The Lennon look-alike is Farman Fath-Alian, a musician whose latest CD has been blocked, for the last five months, by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (known as Ershad).
[...]
Since Khatami became president, some 30 underground studios like this have mushroomed across Tehran, and although they have applied for permission, it has been neither granted nor refused. Like Iran itself, music is in limbo.
[...]
Fath-Alian's music is familiar to Western ears, but much of it draws from the liberal, sensualist writings of the Sufi mystics. So while the lyrics can be read as religious songs, they can also be interpreted as love songs. O-Hum, a band to which Babak Riahipour, Fath-Alian's bassist, belonged until recently, used a similar approach: the music was vital and modern, but the lyrics were those of Hafez, a 14th-century poet sometimes described as Iran's Shakespeare. Ershad wasn't having it. ''First they said the singer was out of tune,'' Riahipour recalls. ''Then they said our music was provocative.'' Provocative in what way? ''Provoking young people to dance and be happy,'' Riahipour says. Dancing, especially between unmarried boys and girls, is, of course, strictly illegal. (At licensed concerts, audience members stay in their seats, nodding their heads or upper bodies only as much as they dare. ''Sometimes there are some courageous boys who head-bang while sitting down,'' Riahipour says, laughing. ''Once I played a concert where there were 5,000 people. One guy got up and started dancing, and they beat the [expletive] out of him.'')
O-Hum got fed up with waiting, so they put their music on the Internet. Now anyone who wants to can listen.
For the time being, the conservatives at the helm of the Islamic republic have no solution to such easy technological loopholes. And whereas two years ago only 500,000 Iranians had access to the Internet, today that number is estimated at 1.75 million and is expected to grow to at least 5 million in the next five years.
This widespread access has allowed many young Iranians to follow political or cultural developments anywhere on the planet. But even more significant, perhaps, it has allowed people to talk to one another. The computer has become particularly important in the lives of urban girls, often confined at home by traditionalist parents who, by the same token, have absolutely no clue what their daughters are doing online.
A lot of what they're doing, it turns out, is blogging. For the uninitiated, a blog is a Web log, a kind of online diary or journal. Many blogs, Iranian or otherwise, are boring accounts of people's daily lives, or gibberish-like streams of consciousness. But in Iran, bolstered by the anonymity their computer screens provide, female bloggers are catching attention for their daring and articulate mix of politics, dirty jokes and acid comment.
Here a female blogger simply lets rip: ''I hate those people who pray and with their prayers make our life a disaster. I hate all those dumb people who go to those marches and shout 'Down with America.' I hate those people I am supposed to bribe for no reason.'' And then: ''I hate cigarettes, I hate men and I hate my emotions as a woman. I hate that feeling of lust and I hate my big nose.'' In a country where a court can sentence a woman to be stoned to death, and 13-year-old brides are nothing extraordinary, such words amount to the most outrageous sedition and heresy.
And yet what's most remarkable about sentiments like this is how pervasive they've become.
MY E-MAIL SERVER GOES DOWN A LOT, and I don't complain, because it's a gift from a friend. I didn't mention the last couple of times it was down for three days at a time, in the last few days. It's been down again since at least last night. So I'm ignoring you, and I don't like you.
STEPHANIEKILLSME. Mostly I'm not cross when I dress, though. I dress simply, for the most part, and for comfort. Even when I'm really lacking in sleep, and slow to wake up in the morning, I'm rarely cross.
But is it possible Stephanie won't let me buy her an ice cream next time I'm in LA?
STILL TRYING TO PAY ATTENTION: Shipping, shipping, who's got the shipping?
The U.S. Military Sealift Command chartered a U.S. flagged general cargo ship to sail from the southeast U.S. coast to an unspecified Middle Eastern port in the Gulf for discharge in late September, they said.
This is the third shipment of arms and military hardware in a month using commercial shipping, which military analysts say shows the U.S. Navy has probably exhausted the capacity of its own fleet and resorted to the open market.
The formal tender document, seen by Reuters, shows the ship will carry 67 separate pieces of "track general cargo, containerized cargo and rolling stock" measuring 56,000 square feet, slightly larger than a soccer pitch.
Military experts say the dimensions and weight of the pieces specified in the document match almost exactly those of the standard U.S. Abrams battle tank.
[...]
The Pentagon has said the shipments of military hardware in August were to support exercises in Jordan that have been planned for two years.
Shipping sources doubted it.
"Why jump into the commercial market in August when you knew the exercises were planned -- it just doesn't make sense," one shipping source said.
THOSE DAMN ISRAELIS, invading Palestinian camps again.
BAALBEK, Lebanon (AP) -- Supporters of the late terrorist leader Abu Nidal fought with Lebanese troops Wednesday, leaving three men dead and provoking a military clampdown on a Palestinian refugee camp.
The clash broke out when troops entered the Jalil refugee camp outside Baalbek in search of a wanted man, a security officer said on condition of anonymity. Two Palestinians and an army corporal were killed in the fighting, and 11 other people were wounded.
The soldiers pulled down the wall of an arms depot belonging to Fatah-Revolutionary Council, the group founded by Abu Nidal, the terrorist leader whose mysterious death in Iraq was announced two weeks ago, the security officer said. Inside they found two truckloads of weapons.
Lebanese security forces rarely enter Palestinian refugee camps, which are run by armed factions and considered beyond government authority.
Interior Minister Elias Murr said the Palestinians opened fire after a scuffle with the soldiers. The shooting subsided after about two hours, but it flared up after the army blocked all approaches to the camp, which lies in the Bekaa Valley about 60 miles east of Beirut.
The Lebanese Army issued a statement identifying the dead corporal as Mahmoud Srour. It said that troops detained some Palestinians on the scene after the shootout.
A delegation of Islamic clerics entered the camp to try to broker a truce. Later, a group of camp leaders met Lebanese security officials in Baalbek.
Murr demanded the camp residents hand over those who fired on the troops.
"Unless they are handed over, the measures taken will be escalated until they are handed over,'' Murr said. "Every criminal in the camps affects innocent people with his acts.''
Some 200 Palestinians, including women and children, gathered at the camp's main entrance, trying to escape the fighting.
The camp is the one of the smallest of the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. It has a population of about 6,600, according to the United Nations.
While Jalil is usually calm, other Palestinian camps in Lebanon are notoriously volatile. Last month, Palestinians and Lebanese militants fought with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in the largest refugee camp, Ein el-Hilweh, outside the southern port of Sidon.
I could do the "oh, oops," thing but I hate to overuse. I trust I need not point out that it's unclear whether many folk will be marching against Lebanese embassies, and against Lebannon oppression of Palestinians, and Lebanese brutality in entering Palestinian camps to suppress terrorism, any time soon.
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YEAH, BLOGGING COMMUNITIES and other online communities, are entirely real, Meryl Yourish articulately corrects Andrew Sullivan and Kurt Andersen's self-centered, missing-the-point discussion of blogging in Slate. And they're important to many of us in them.
Rebecca can write earnestly about weblogging communities because so many of them exist. A quick look around the Internet will show that. Sullivan is a perfect example of the kind of blogger that permeates the blogosphere these days: Ignorant, unknowledgeable about anything save his narrow little slice of blogdom (and that not much), yet thinking that he has been informed from on high as to exactly what constitutes blogging. It is exactly the thing that drives me crazy whenever I read something like it on any blogger's site. Here's a clue, people: There are thousands of blogs out there, and just as there is no one way to write a book, no single person has the claim to the "right" way to write a blog. And here's something else you may find interesting: There are whole communities of webloggers out there that you've never heard of, and who have never heard of you.
Yes, but we're the little people. Check out Sullivan's most astonishing point:
The one wonderful thing about blogging from your laptop is that you don't have to deal with other people.
WHICH PART OF THIS STORY is right, and which part is wrong? You decide. I could tell you, but that would be wrong.
Faith is alive and well on UPN's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" -- or at least she will be next season. According to The Hollywood Reporter, actress Eliza Dushku has signed on to reprise her role as evil vampire Faith on the long-running series. Dushku previously starred on the show from 1998 to 2000 and also guest-starred on its "Angel" spin-off. Her new pact commits her to appear as Faith in at least five episodes of "Buffy" as well as three installments of "Angel." During her time away from the shows, Dushku has kept busy with roles in such movies as "Bring It On" (2000) and "Soul Survivors" (2001). She will next be seen opposite Robert De Niro in "City by the Sea." "Buffy" is scheduled to begin its seventh season on Sept. 24.
BUT DOES IT HAVE A WASHER/DRYER?: Want a villain's lair suitable for world-conquering? Try bidding for this on E-bay.
ATLAS-F MISSILE SILO HOME FEATURES (above ground house) Open floor plan home w/ kitchen, island fireplace and wrap around covered porch, a large garage which has a secret escape hatch to the underground. The surface home doubles as an entrance to the Launch Control Center (LCC) and Silo below. See photo of keypad entry locking steel doors.
LAUNCH CONTROL CENTER (LCC) (below ground living quarters) Two story 3ft. thick epoxy resin formulated concrete reinforced walls with stainless steel mesh. Structure is 42 ft. diameter containing 2300 sf luxury home with full kitchen, dinning, entertainment center, with two private suites and exquisite marble baths with Jacuzzi. Contemporary fiber optic effect lighting along with natural sunlight rendition back lighting. Has escape hatch leading directly to surface home garage above. High circulation venting (two 18" vent tubes.)
Once perfected, the tattoo will allow glucose levels to be monitored round the clock, and could allow an alarm system that would warn the diabetic if their glucose levels were to fall dangerously.
[...]
It is made of polyethylene glycol beads that are coated with fluorescent molecules.
Because glucose displaces the fluorescent molecules, the level of fluorescence is high when bodily glucose levels are low.
PAGING PHIL DICK TO THE PINK COURTESY BEAM: How very Dick.
A self-organising electronic circuit has stunned engineers by turning itself into a radio receiver. What should have been an oscillator became a radio.
This accidental reinvention of the radio followed an experiment to see if an automated design process, that uses an evolutionary computer program, could be used to "breed" an electronic circuit called an oscillator. An oscillator produces a repetitive electronic signal, usually in the form of a sine wave.
Paul Layzell and Jon Bird at the University of Sussex in Brighton applied the program to a simple arrangement of transistors and found that an oscillating output did indeed evolve.
But when they looked more closely they found that, despite producing an oscillating signal, the circuit itself was not actually an oscillator. Instead, it was behaving more like a radio receiver, picking up a signal from a nearby computer and delivering it as an output.
In essence, the evolving circuit had cheated, relaying oscillations generated elsewhere, rather than generating its own.
Layzell and Bird were using the software to control the connections between 10 transistors plugged into a circuit board that was fitted with programmable switches. The switches made it possible to connect the transistors differently.Treating each switch as analogous to a gene allowed new circuits to evolve. Those that oscillated best were allowed to survive to a next generation. These "fittest" candidates were then mated by mixing their genes together, or mutated by making random changes to them.
After several thousand generations you end up with a clear winner, says Layzell. But precisely why the winner was a radio still mystifies them.
WATCHED FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING AGAIN. In honor, am blogging The Secret Diaries of LOTR characters, which I passed on doing when it first went wrong. Er, round. Since so many people blogged it. If you missed it, check it out.
Where did Gandalf get his replacement staff and pointy hat from, anyhoo?
The Global Civil Society Laptop should not be oppressed by hundreds of "standardized" sizes for computer components, power options, or communication interfaces. It should be free to adapt to whatever situation you find yourself in. You shouldn't have to lug an armload of power adapters, nor should the word "dongle" ever cross your lips again.
[...]
respectfully submit to the Viridian Design movement, the internet, and the occasional slashdot reader what I felt was the best solution to these constraints - the VacuumPacked Computer.
I started by taking the flattest thing I could locally. In this case, a piece of corrugated cardboard. Maybe later, I'll upgrade to a piece of fiberglass siding, the top of a 55-gallon drum, or a license plate from a Toyota Land Cruiser. It doesn't matter as long as it's stiff and flat. Then went to the local Global Society Computer Shop, got a medium-sized transparent plastic Computer Bag, browsed the bins and filled the Computer Bag with: The flat thing I found. The Global Civil Society Switching Power Supply A touch sensitive screen A motherboard A recycled hard-drive (a spare from the company... you know, a whopping 800 mb but that's okay, right? we're running a trustworthy lightweight OS with well-designed apps, no?) Global Civil Society Digital Signal Processor
[...]
Some unique features:
Global Civil Society Switching Power Supply - GCS-SPS
You have to get power somewhere, why limit yourself to one source? The global civil society laptop gets power from anything you can clamp it to- from solar cell to car battery, funky native power outlet, or someone rubbing their hands against a balloon.
[...]
If you're running on a potato or watch battery, and it’s not a lot of power, the system merely slows down. If you attached it to an arc welder and really, there's probably too much power, it runs a lot faster. If it gets too hot, you can always submerge it in a lake or river. (It’s all vacuum-sealed and waterproof)
AIN'T NO BAD STEPHANIE: She's baaack. The amusing hoax persona Brian Linse conjured up to bemuse us all while Brian was busy Making Moobies in Europe a few months ago, has returned to AintNoBadDude. I can't quite bring myself to play along deadpan with the gag, but I do enjoy the skill applied to it. Key quote:
I know it's been a long time. I saw Mikey at Starbuckie's yesterday. We talked a long long time. He told me about how much of yourself you are pouring into Den of Lions and how it has really just almost taken over your life. He said you are hardly even doing that writing stuff you love so much....
Of course, since Stephanie is so a real person, I bet she'll be really mad when she reads this, and maybe even call me a dork or something equally k00!.
WATER FOR THE DEAD MIGHT PREVENT MORE DEAD: Water for the Dead Sea, that is.
After a week of international squabbling at the summit meeting here on the environment and development, two uneasy neighbors lifted spirits today with an unexpected agreement: Israel and Jordan announced that they would join forces to save the Dead Sea, the biblical body of water that is rapidly receding.
The Dead Sea, on the border between the two countries, sits in a place that is revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims. It is near the waters where Jesus is believed to have been baptized; near Mount Nebo, where the Bible says Moses saw the Promised Land; and near the Kerak fortress, where Muslim fighters conquered Christian crusaders in the 1100's.
But the sea is ebbing by three feet each year as a thirsty region diverts virtually all of the water that originally flowed into it from the river Jordan.
Over the next 50 years, the sea could to shrink to less than half of its current size, officials say. To prevent that, Israel and Jordan plan to build a 186-mile pipeline at a cost of about $1 billion to pump water from the Red Sea into the Dead Sea.
[...]
The pipeline will begin in Israel and run through Jordan. After it is built, the officials would like to build a canal to carry water from the Red Sea that would be desalted to meet the water needs of Jordan.
[...]
Mr. Milo said he hoped that the Palestinians and Arab countries would work together in this project and others in coming years. Dr. Hazim el-Naser, Jordan's minister of water and irrigation, commented: "People are saying that water will cause wars. We in the region, we're saying, `No.' Water will enhance cooperation. We can build peace through water projects."
Carefully left unstated is the blunter translation: if your neighbor can cut off your drinkable water, or an attack on your neighbor will destroy your water supply, you have a considerable incentive to not make or allow such an attack, despite other pressures.
Which is hardly definitive. Wars are often begun for partially irrational, emotional reasons, such as national pride, or fear, and you can find plenty of wordage from the 1900's explaining that World War was impossible since the world economy was now so intertwined it would be self-destructive. But still, the ties that, well, anyway.
GET'CHER FULL HUGO AWARD VOTING RESULTShere. (Simple list of winners here.) Special congrats to Jo Walton for winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer!
Results are fresh from last night's ceremony at ConJose, this year's World Science Fiction Convention. If you're interested, next year will be in Toronto, 2004 in Boston, 2005 in Glasgow. The sooner you buy a membership, the cheaper it will be, as rates escalate.
(This fellow has been posting lots of pitters of ConJose.)
Lisa L. Spangenberg has some reporting on the ConJose blogging panels (also see her later entries).
IS YOUR LOVE THIS LONG?: As long as a tapeworm, that is? Ah, another of Those Wacky Japanese stories.
THEY arrive quietly, walk tentatively and whisper in awe. Some hold hands, others hold their mouths. Few give their names and most leave silently shaking their heads.
The Meguro Parasitological Museum in Japan is a rare storehouse devoted entirely to tapeworms, bloodsuckers and other organisms that feed off their hosts. The ghoulish gallery in central Tokyo has amazed and alarmed millions of students, researchers and veterinarians for nearly half a century.
But in the last several years the museum has also turned into an urban version of Blueberry Hill, where eager couples come to bond and test their mutual mettle. And while two floors filled with graphic pictures of goiters, a world map of infectious diseases and bottle after bottle of hookworms would seem unlikely to put one in a romantic mood, there appears to be no shortage of young lovers willing to play Gomez and Morticia Addams for a day.
"The museum is seen as some kind of fun house," said Prof. Akihiko Uchida, the museum's director, who also teaches medical zoology at Azabu University outside Tokyo. "But once you come here, you know this is not like that. Perhaps people come because they want to be scared."
[...]
To make ends meet, he installed a gift shop with T-shirts, key chains and post cards. A guidebook called "The Wonderful World of the Worm" describes many Japanese parasites, especially those found in fish. For 3,300 yen ($27.50), you can buy a shirt emblazoned with a diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense.
[...]
A newsletter, the "Parasite Museum News," has been discontinued, but "Hara no Mushi Tsushin" ("The Stomach Worm Correspondence") is still in circulation.
Subscribe now! And don't miss:
No amount of reading material, though, can outdo the museum's pièce de résistance: an 8.8-meter-long (28.5 feet) tapeworm frozen for eternity in blue Lucite. The white worm is so long that it fits into the vertical case only by being draped up and down seven times. There's an equally long string nearby if you want to measure it yourself. (Warning to sushi lovers: The tapeworm was taken from the small intestine of a man who ate marinated trout.)
MOZILLA SEEMS TO BE a very nice browser, overall, but Lesson Of The Day is: Do Not Try To Post To Blogger With It. It screws up the formatting something fierce, even if you try to cut what you wrote in the Blogger posting window via Mozilla, and then paste into the Blogger window via I.E. 5.5. And it simply won't let you post via Mozilla at all. Apparently.
UM, NO, I didn't say what "Charles Dodgson" -- whom I quite respect -- says I said. Compare and conclude on your own. I said:
Who's the chief sponsor of this nonsense? Infamous right-wing repressive Republican no-nothing on civil liberties, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.
Oh, oops.
Somehow, from that, Through The Looking Glass, a generally excellent blog, unaccountably concludes:
A quickie while dealing with further hardware problems: Gary Farber thinks Joe Biden is out to prove that Democrats can be as dismissive of civil rights as the most callous Republican.
I, as you can see, didn't say that, and I'm afraid TTLG's attempt to mind-read what I think here is inaccurate.
If I had wanted to make the point CD inferred I would have written those words. What I actually wrote was specifically about Joe Biden. If CD wants to expand my shaking my head at Joe Biden to a general take on Democrats, he's welcome to do so, but he's speaking for himself, not for me.
Announcements as to what other people think, as opposed to reactions to what they directly wrote, are a risky business, unless one employs an actual telepath, rather than making inferences as to what you believe someone is implying, and therefore thinking.
I think "Charles Dodgson" -- whose blog I recommend -- knows that. Of course.
