rare bird

Who will control the commanding heights of file sharing? Governments or markets?

Even better - if you increase individual and corporate sales taxes, not only do you not have to cut anything, you can cut income taxes, increase services, and still have a 1 million dollar surplus. Meet Minnesota's obligations without giving employers reasons to leave the state. Try the Budget Balancer for yourself!

Gov. Pawlenty's budget cuts health care and aid to local communities, and expands gambling. Mine doesn't.

NPR featured this band on St. Patrick's Day, so I ordered their album, The Kinnitty Sessions . It just arrived. If you like Irish/Celtic music you'll enjoy this album!

This is an article by Robert V. Rakestraw, professor of theology at Bethel Seminary. It was written in 1992, but seems especially appropriate now, given the Schiavo situation. Dr. Rakestraw is an evangelical Christian, yet argues that in PVS situations it is morally appropriate to remove food and water from a patient.

89.3 The Current just played Trip Shakespeare to commemorate our new snowfall. That's beautiful.

This is a Beatles-Metallica parody band. Some of the most hilarious music I've heard in a long time. Sony was not amused, however - afraid this would somehow take away from Metallica sales, they issued a cease-and-desist order that shut Beatallica.org down. But never fear - this site is streaming their songs. Oh, brings back headbanger memories.

Led by former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA), this organization reflects the ideals I spoke of in "The Ring of Doom in the Postmodern World," but has an eminently practical application. Sam Nunn should be president! I can heartily endorse this org and everything they are trying to do.

Let the significant women in your life know.

Now contains the best movie trailer in history, downloads, concept art, and news.

Tolkien proved more right every day!

Reformation!

J.R.R. Tolkien did not like it when people tried to find analogies in LOTR or any of his other writings. He wanted people to take his books at face value, not try to read meanings "into" them from the outside. Regardless, many people have found analogies in LOTR, most commonly images of world war. Despite Tolkiens' protestations, this makes sense because he did fight in World War I. After seeing Peter Jacksons' films, particularly the "Council of Elrond" scene in FOTR, a new analogy arose in my mind - that of the Ring as the terrible power of nuclear weapons in our postmodern world. The scene is like a mythological IAEA - all the races of Middle-Earth gather to debate the fate of the Ring, and to decide who will be the Ringbearer. There is a lot of argument and conflict over this issue; jealousy and suspicion abounds; precious unity is sacrificed to the thought of using the Ring as a weapon to defeat Middle-Earth's enemies. In the meantime, the Ring aga

It's Yahoo's tenth anniversary. Check out their page circa 1995.

Pacifica, CA February 27, 2005--Jef Raskin, a mathematician, orchestral soloist and composer, professor, bicycle racer, model airplane designer, and pioneer in the field of human-computer interactions, died peacefully at home in California on February 26th, 2005 surrounded by his family and loved ones. He had recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Raskin continued to work throughout his life - his working project when he became sick was "Archy," a text editor that will embrace many of his principles. This line especially caught my attention: "Archy also replaces mouse movements, which many text editing programs require, with much faster "Leap" keystrokes, reducing the likelihood of carpel tunnel syndrome." This is important to me since I suffer from CTS. Bravo!

Why do people put multiple punctuation marks in their emails? This one is from a customer: "What do you think about that??? Let me know. Thanks!!!!"

This is a fantastic tool. I had forgotten the definitions of the fields on a new report I need to write Help for, and this allowed me to find a cache of the doc from Feb. 11 that has the information I need. It found the cache in my Recycle Bin! Otherwise I would have had to go and bug the developer again to send me the doc. Saved the day. There are concerns about security, since the tool indexes one's hard drive, but for now, I think the risk is worth it.