Craigslist subject line says: "Free Pet Rooster, To Approved Home Only." Yeah, I don't even have to click through. This is some softhearted idiot who decided to raise laying chickens and found they or their neighbors can't cope with the noise of a rooster around. And they're We Must Not Hurt The Cute An' Fluffy Animals vegetarians who can't bear ( Read more... )

Consider the possibility that if some one tells you your choice of words makes it hard for some people to hear your message, this may not be a request to shut up, it might just be a request to find better words. If you can't bear to have people ask you to rephrase, perhaps the problem does not lie in them.

Shut up, and lie back down, I'm not done kicking you for things other people did to me.

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The English people must be tougher than they look, outwardly, since what Americans call a slash, to them is the merest stroke.

The Polling Point people are running essay contests through the election, requesting opinion-driven essays (blog posts, really) and videos on various issues. The current one is on the prompt, "If you could speak directly to Obama and Romney, what would you tell them they had to do to secure your vote?" What follows is my take -- it's a short ( Read more... )

Pretty much how my writing brain works: I have a major revelation. About the metaphysics of vampires. And how they relate to demons, angels, and gods. And how all of this is just an instantiation of Thomist metaphysics, and accounts for the problem of vampire souls and disappearing gods in my story ( Read more... )

A theoretical framework that supports conclusions I agree with is a sound theoretical framework. ("Sound" here in the technical sense -- i.e. incorporates a logically valid argument, and is based on true premises ( Read more... )

Eventually I will stop being All Obama All the Time. But not yet.

Mark Schmitt considers Obama's speech, and his religion, as an expression of his core identity as a communitarianI hadn't explcitly seen Obama this way before. But for me, a core piece of the appeal of Obama's candidacy is that identity as a builder of community. I have a sort of ( Read more... )

And furthermore, Hah! I say. This is the sound of Ulrika having finished the triple-looped moss-covered color morph necklace of doom. And so I say unto you, Hah ( Read more... )