Since I have a few spare minutes but not enough energy to do a content post, I thought I would take a moment to discuss the concept of civil discourse.

Many of the topics and opinions I post up here are contentious, otherwise I wouldn't invite discussion.  However, I ask that people limit themselves to the topic at hand or something close to it.

What I don't want to see is posting concerning the posters a) political views b) mental capabilities or c) questionable lineage.  In the Air Force, there are a pretty simple rule the trainers had to follow (with mixed success) at basic training:  you can call an action or comment stupid, but cannot call the person stupid - or, for that matter, any of a number of things I've seen lately.

Lately, I've seen more jumping to conclusions on this journal than in multiple readings of The Phantom Tollbooth.  Perhaps a simple "Do you mean to say X?" query would save a lot of unnecessary grief compared to resorting to the "ZOMG!  You're a (insert conclusion here)!" gambit.

Cite, if at all possible.  There are exceedingly few things that "everybody knows."

Finally, a list of discouraged techniques, Courtesy of Gods Playing Poker:

The Red Herring
The Ad Hominem Attack - I've been seeing this a lot.  KNOCK IT OFF!
The Appeal to Ignorance
Contextology
The Appeal to Authority
The Slippery Slope
Two Wrongs Make a Right - very popular with the last comment fest

If you're here to discuss, or at least present your arguments constructively, you're welcome.  If you're just here to repeat your unsupported opinions and/or call people names, move on, please.

http://www.afi.com/silver/new/nowplaying/2009/v6i4/totallyawesome3.aspx

A lot of cool movies, though I'd probably narrow it down to those where you could get a psyched up crowd since most are avaivibe on DVD.

Gods Playing Poker is a web comic (with an LJ feed) I chanced across today.  Besides being funny, it illustrates the Seven Deadly Fallacies.  Since my last foreign policy post churned up the airwaves a little, I'd encourage everyone to take a look at the Fallacies to know what to avoid when having a difference of opinion.  Because work blocks LJ, I have to depend on you folk to play nice while I'm gone.

I had someone on my facebook post trumpeting the virtues of those noble bands of "teabaggers" out there this weekend.

So where were these "voices against authoritarian government" when we were practicing torture, unlawful detention, illegal surveillance, starting wars through deception, and otherwise taking dumps on the Constitution?

They worry about money being spent on trying to slow the plummet of our economy, but nary a peep when we funded OIF on the Gov't charge card.  A war justified by intelligence obtained through torture.  All the marks of gov't w/o restraint, and nary a peep.  But propose a plan to make the insurance companies a little more competitive and suddenly they're out there screaming "Bolshevik!"

Also, while I know the importance of subordinating the military to the civil power better than most people, I'm getting a little tired of people who have no one of their aquaintence in the military frothing at the mouth for us to deal with Iran or North Korea.  Because when they say "we should do something" they mean "I should do something," because who gets to exercise the sovereign options they come up with while they're sitting in front of the tube watching Fox News and chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!"  like it was some sort of sporting event instead of a huge widow, orphan and amputee making machine?

Forgive me if I see these pig-frellers new found patriotism as something a little less noble...

I've talked to a few people about a friend's commentary about P&P&Zombies.  I do so because he talks in passing about a Aubrey/Pirates of the Carib. mashup which is rather amusing.  So they (and you, O lucky reader) can read it, here is the address:

http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/2009/06/jane-austen-and-vampires.html

Will McLean, reenactor, cartoonist and humor writer, has a lot of good posts and is available on LJ as http://syndicated.livejournal.com/willscommonplac/

He's worth a read.

Something you need this holiday, courtesy of my friend LP

Behind a cut because it will offend people - some of them a lot.

( I'd Turn Back If I Were You... )

Well, the good news is class is over - the bad news is I'm not sure the wx is going to let me out of Tampa early, or on time, for that matter (we're getting hammered by t-storms coming in from off the Gulf).

So, I'm going to check my options and possibly hit the movie theater for a matinee.  In the meantime, I leave you with a question:

Jackson and Mozart - child prodigies from abusive families doomed to live weird and die young?  Discuss.

I haven't been able to find the agent recommended to me, so I decided to open it up to the Peanut Gallery.

I'm looking for an agent with experience in the Bowie/Northern PG area.

Answers screened so people can be open.

We are at war, yet we continue to throw people out of the military for no other reason than they're gay.  Australia integrated in 1992, Britain in 2000.  Neither country has seen it's military ruined as a fighting force because of it.  However, in an effort to avoid rocking the boat, we continue to sacrifice military readiness in the name of making the fundamentalists feel less squicky.

The right to marry who you want is both a matter of civil rights and financial security.  Protecting the rights of children and spouses through the divorce laws, which would seem to be literal "family values," would be better served by extending the franchise of marriage to all.  However, not only in the Administration not pushing the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), they are defending it in court using insulting arguments such as:


True, it doesn't penalize one gender over another - it penalizes gays regardless of race, creed and color, though I suppose they still have the right to marry someone they don't love who is the "appropriate" gender.  Again, we're forced to kowtow to religious extremists because their interp of their holy book says it's wrong. 

The time for slow rolling people's rights should be past.  Hell, Iowa gets it, why can't we?

Even my post titles seem to get recycled sometimes.

It's been two weeks and I can't say anything earthshattering has happened to me.  There are topics worthy of writing, but I usually don't have the umph while I'm at the desk.

I've changed my lj style to green in solidarity with the Iranians trying to get a fair vote, and hopefully far more, from their gov't.  In case you missed this, which you would watching cable news, I suggest Andrew Sullivan, Talking Points Memo, and the beeb.

It's time to go to work!  Yay?

http://www.arlingtondrafthouse.com/?page=event&eid=876

Sat, 27 June 1300hrs - Can't Stop the Serenity 2009 fundraiser at the Arlington Cinema and Drunkhouse

Today was my weekend with the girls.  I took over at B's this morning - K was still sleeping from the late night they had at the Bay Sox Stadium overnight campout, so it took a while to get things going.

We had two choices for the day: the Washington Folk Festival or Maryland's Place in Space - an exhibition at the Baltimore Convention Center along with a HS robotics competition.  The girls split the vote down the middle, but since I knew B was taking them to the Folk Fest the next day I broke the tie in favor of space.

We had a late start and a little traffic, but we got some decent parking karma and were soon to the top floor of the convention center.  They had a series of stations where you could see and do various things.  One of the best was a table that gave out the disposable glasses that give the prism effect.  They can be used with lights of various types as a cheap spectrometer.  It was cool to look through the glasses and be able to match it with the output spectrum for krypton.  K was a little too young and a little too tired to get the most out of it, though she did get to control a simulated RC aircraft (a growth job in the Air Force) a robot car and give a high five to Sid the Science Kid.  E got a few things, including a set of beads that were white until hit by outside light where they turn colors.  More importantly, she had enough science to get some of the experiments.

After that we went home via David's Natural Market to pick up some food for the UU Fellowship Dinner.  It was fun, though I did have to keep a weather eye out for the girls in the RE/nursery area.  Afterwards, we came home, they went to dinner and I did laundry.  I'm just about to pack it in but I do need to plan for tomorrow.

Tomorrow night is my biweekly dinner and gaming night in Herndon so I'm trying to decide if enough people are going to Glen Echo for the Folk Fest to justify a couple of hours there.  Also, a friend is having the first of a series of open houses at his place tomorrow so I might put in an appearance there, though it is far from the path to VA.

OK, bed now...

I have the girls Sat afternoon and was wondering if anything of worth to a 5 and 8 year old might be going on Sat?  I'd appreciate the heads up.

I decided to take a little of the money from the Germany trip and go to Austria.  OK, not to the country - would have been better to do that while I was there - but to the embassy in DC.  They are having a black tie gala:

http://www.thingstododc.com/events.php?show=1288

If this strikes your fancy, you need to buy your tickets before tomorrow at 5PM.

What will happen?  Maybe something good, maybe something bad...

Tactical Corsets

(It gets harder to do satire every day around here - you can't keep up)

Sure. Hard not to believe in it, it works for a great deal of people (though not everyone).

A better question is "Is it for me?" I believe my answer is yes. Monoamoury and polyamoury both have their pluses and minuses, but I think polyamoury has more potential to make my life overly complexified.

Poly does work well enough for some, though, so I don't reject it out of hand. Life's tough enough without cutting off people's options because without a compelling reason.

I spent a lot of last night working on a posting, only to lose ot when I forgot to click on another tab before going to do research either on that posting or something else that came into my head (can't remember right now).

I realized what I did but "restoring from saved draft" only got me about 1/3 of the piece.  Bad words were said.

This happens often enough I get truly annoyed, but not often enough that I make a habit of doing my work in a more loss protected medium.

I didn't get to take my new laptop to GER because Ubuntu Ibex and the various wireless solutions weren't working well together.
Since Ver 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) was just released, I decided to give it a go. Wow! This version was a matter of putting the CD in and having the Jackalope say "go take a break - I've got this." No glitches in setup and it found the internal wireless and set it up first go. Pick a network, give it a password and off it went - unlike the ThinkPad which always wanted a reboot if I changed networks, which is so un-Linux. If I can get it to see the built in webcam then we'll be cooking with gas.

Jackalope isn't as fond of the ThinkPad - it sees the wireless cards (I've tried two) and it sees the networks, but it's not locking onto the network, even though Kearsarge (the new laptop) has no problem connecting. Fortunately, Saratoga (the Thinkpad) isn't a priority now that Kearsarge is working, but I'd like it off the work queue. I also need to get the wireless repeater working to improve connection to the router, which is in the basement, but I can still use it upstairs.

Now, I need to cleanup and go to tea, secure that at least one task is down.