Thanks, Greg Beato of Wonkette.
Speaking last week on a Philadelphia radio show, Rumsfeld shared one historian’s view that "if the Revolutionary War had been covered the way we’re covering this war and people had seen how difficult the conditions are and how badly things were run…people would have tossed it in."
So if we pull out of Iraq, we have to start paying taxes to Saddam again? Hit that message harder, Rummy, and maybe even Grover will enlist.
Incidentally, Ana Marie Cox and Greg Beato of Wonkette, "Your Pal Carl" of Plastic.com, and also Heather Havrilesky of rabbitblog, Salon, and sometimes even NPR, were all once the secret crew behind the late, great Suck.com. (Long article here.)
A group calling itself "Newsbreakers" gangs up on unsuspecting local news folks with the help of veteran reporter Jiminy Diz, the Cheese Ninja, and an Invisibility Suit. It’s The Daily Show meets absurdist street theater.
Back in the day, I would throw my trusty bobcat rug on my back like a cape, put a cowboy hat on his cute little dead bobcat head (which would rest atop my cute little head), and call myself Billy Bob Bocat Man. Raorwrhr! Think I can get in with these guys? I’d really like to throw cheese at someone. Brenda Wood, I’m looking at you, bitch! Billy Bob Bobcat Man says you’re going down!
Please correct me if I’m wrong. But it appears that the UUA’s Commission on Appraisal is only making printed copies available of its report. Moreover, it is only making one copy available to each congregation. The rest of us must buy a copy of the report (link withheld) from the UUA bookstore for $14 plus shipping and handling. Oh, and we get to enjoy the UUA Bookstore’s lightning fast response speed.
So the report, "Engaging Our Theological Diversity," is supposed to address the question, "What is the unity in our theological diversity?" The mission of the COA is this:
Grounded in the living tradition of our free faith, yet charged with acting independently, the Commission on Appraisal’s mission is to provoke deep reflection, energizing and revitalizing Unitarian Universalism.
So why do I have to buy my own damn copy? Can’t they just post a PDF and/or convert it to HMTL? It would take, maybe, all of twenty minutes to do. Or send me the InDesign file and I’ll do it myself.
Oh, yeah, and it’s a freaking committee report!?!
Printed copies, in and of themselves, are fine by me. (I may want one myself.) My beef is that this info should also be freely available over the net. I won’t go into the transparency and class issues except to say that, as it stands, the COA presents itself as only needing to "energize and revitalize" GA delegates and those with $20 in their committee report budget.
I’m intrigued by the new "Adopt a Blog" project. The idea is that bloggers who own their own domain and control their web space (rented or otherwise) can host a blog for a Chinese blogger who would otherwise be blocked by Chinese authorities. Of course, China isn’t the only nation clamping down on the free speech rights of bloggers, but China has been cracking down lately (with help from Microsoft, by the way).
Right now I simply don’t have the space here to host anything else (several projects going on in the background). But I hope to get involved once I get some room freed up.
If you’re using a service like Blogger, this is a great excuse to finally make the jump to your own domain name. Even better if you use an open source blog package like WordPress.
Real Live Preacher continues his series on depression:
Hyper-focus has always been my drug of choice, and these are the things that bring it: movies, reading, writing, and preaching. […]
So my first experience with preaching on drugs tells me that I’ve got to relearn some things. Having real drugs on board, I don’t need to use preaching as a drug anymore, if that makes any sense at all.
Makes perfect sense to this almost preacher.
Illinois Senator Barak Obama recently gave a commencement speech to the 2005 graduates of Knox College, asking "What is your place in history?" Davis Kusnet think we’ll be hearing this question more and more often from Obama, and others as they catch on.
