“And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.”
-Terry Pratchett

If I learned absolutely nothing else in high school English (disclaimer: I learned a lot in high school English), I DID learn that words have meaning and thus the potential to shape the world. I haven’t always applied this knowledge for good, but it’s always been in the ( Read more... )

I don’t like to talk much about politics in public places, and none is more public than my blog. Even though I have a disclaimer, I’m searching for a job and there’s some worries that if I disclose my political beliefs, it might cost me a job. But I can’t write about this subject without saying it. I’m left of center and a Democrat. There are ( Read more... )

Over the last few days, I have been voraciously combing the internet, reading anything and everything I can find on the nominees for the Hugo awards and wrestling with my own conscience. I think I have finally come to a conclusion as to what I am going to do.

I will read all the Hugo nominees as if this were a normal year. I cannot betray my own ( Read more... )

This is simply awesome (although my Republican friends might not think so…):

Click to view

(Hat tip to Steve Benen over at Political Animal for the link.)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

[Alright, this is a bit long, but do me the favor of reading it through, okay?]

There’s a bottle of pills sitting on my bookcase. Every night, I swallow one.

I asked once at the pharmacy how much it would cost me to fill the script. Their response was eighty dollars for a month’s supply. It could be worse. The last time I asked the same ( Read more... )

You know, it's scary to go to a town hall meeting and realizing that your Congressman, a Republican, is less rabid than several people in the room. There were a few occasions when Rep. Lungren was booed because some of the really rabid people wanted nothing less than to throw all the illegals (read: Mexicans) over the border right now. And the ( Read more... )

I'm glad I got a good jump on Nano this year ( Read more... )

Sorting, cleaning, filing, putting away. I'm in the middle of trying to go through several boxes that have accumulated over the last ten to twelve years ( Read more... )

If sea levels rise 14m (~46ft), then my folks will practically have bayfront property. Near Sacramento. (Not that there'd *be* a Sacramento in this scenario.)

It's a bit sobering.

Thesis: California is so flipping crazy because we're making it up as we go along.

(IOW, katster's head is bashing ideas together like a supercollider. Don't mind me, I'll just sit here in the corner and spin wheels and damn zibblsnrt for suggesting I turn what are incoherent and nebulous ideas on the subject into a book ( Read more... )