Why I read the Washington Post

We hope that Pope Benedict XVI , like his predecessor, will stand up to the world's dictators and for the rights of Catholics and others to practice their faiths freely.

There's less reason to hope, perhaps, that Pope Benedict XVI will rethink policies that we believe have harmful effects, but it's fair to point out that it's not only Catholics who suffer from some of those. Certainly we hope that the pope's admirable profession of "adult faith" does not mean that the church must continue to impede the distribution of condoms in Africa and in other developing countries, where greater use could inhibit the spread of AIDS and prevent thousands of premature deaths.

We also hope that the new pope has the courage to intervene, rapidly and decisively, to make clear a policy of zero tolerance when it comes to child abuse by priests. And we hope he'll weigh the possible benefits of new medical technologies, and not dismiss them out of hand. It is an extraordinary pulpit that the former Cardinal Ratzinger has been given. If he uses it well, the whole world will benefit.

editorial, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/

does Rustedrobot come in the paper version?


If yes, it might be useful, especially in case of emergencies...



PS Sorry J, you asked for it!!!!

What about Rustedrobot? That is the most intelligent writing America has to offer!

How about

the Harpers? That's still my favourite one.

Quoted

"There are only two really great literary magazines in the United States. First is the New Yorker. The more brilliant of the two is Scientific American. It's come up with a great editorship. I'd rather read the advertisements in Scientific American than most of the literature written elsewhere"

--- Attributed to Robert Frost

How about A Wicked...

Nose?

anyway, I'm pretty happy to have my head used as a logo.

G's Head Cut in Half and used as a Masthead

A Wicked Mind

Back to 1880s. With EMP.

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the American homeland is one of only a few ways that the United States could be defeated by its enemies -- terrorist or otherwise. And it is probably the easiest. A single Scud missile, carrying a single nuclear weapon, detonated at the appropriate altitude, would interact with the Earth's atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse radiating down to the surface at the speed of light. Depending on the location and size of the blast, the effect would be to knock out already stressed power grids and other electrical systems across much or even all of the continental United States, for months if not years.

Few if any people would die right away. But the loss of power would have a cascading effect on all aspects of U.S. society. Communication would be largely impossible. Lack of refrigeration would leave food rotting in warehouses, exacerbated by a lack of transportation as those vehicles still working simply ran out of gas (which is pumped with electricity). The inability to sanitize and distribute water would quickly threaten public health, not to mention the safety of anyone in the path of the inevitable fires, which would rage unchecked. And as we have seen in areas of natural and other disasters, such circumstances often result in a fairly rapid breakdown of social order.

When deprived of power, we are in many ways helpless, as the New York City blackout made clear. In that case, power was restored quickly because adjacent areas could provide help. But a large-scale burnout caused by a broad EMP attack would create a much more difficult situation. Not only would there be nobody nearby to help, it could take years to replace destroyed equipment.

In the words of another witness at the hearing, "The longer the basic outage, the more problematic and uncertain the recovery of any [infrastructure system] will be. It is possible -- indeed, seemingly likely -- for sufficiently severe functional outages to become mutually reinforcing, until a point at which the degradation . . . could have irreversible effects on the country's ability to support any large fraction of its present human population." Those who survived, he said, would find themselves transported back to the United States of the 1880s.

Jon Kyl, Republican senator from Arizona and chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security.

Thanks.

Happy birthday to all of you born on April 13.

Happy birthday to all of you born.

Happy Birthday G.

Only 20 days til Jeff's birthday.

Also just 36 days til Ann's Birthday.

And last but not least 82 days til Maiko's big day.

Day of Birth

I mean, Birthday is the day of birth, right?

So why do people keep telling you every 365 (or 366) days after the day of your birth, Happy Birthday??

'Happy Birthday' should be said only once to you, the day you're born. Not every 365 days.

What do you mean?

It can't be...

... that you're only/already 32.

What?

You don't know the numbers of your forefathers?

No, seriously,

how old are you, Mike?

XXXII

Years old.

Happy Birthday Mike

That poem is definitely one of my best works.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that ’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

umm, ok

Yeah, none of you fell for that.

Jadedturtle will be down for a bit (it might actually disappear for a day or two), I'm moving to a new hosting company. They cost more but I'll be able to get all my domains up and running. (all 5 of them)

I'm getting married!

This is so fucking awesome.