Page of Moss - Bloglet

How to tell if you are old:

Your hair has all turned white. Your body is bent and weary with many decades of labour. Now, in the cool spring evenings, you sit by the fire and think, or rest, or tell stories to those around you. Children; grandchildren; great grandchildren. They look at you with a mixture of respect and fear. What strange manner of creature could survive so many years in this world of ours? There is much you remember, and much you have forgotten. At shows, you dance around ridiculously, never considering what other people will think, while hardrocking sixteen year old kids look on with delight. You know that death is near. _
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03:56:25 PM, Thursday 27 March 2003

Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon, is stricken with hatred for her mother, who now lives in luxury with her lover Aegisthus as she languishes on a farm with her good but lowly husband. Driven by revenge, she becomes a ninja...

Go read. Really. _
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06:16:25 PM, Wednesday 26 March 2003

jwz: Tibetan monk prepares to kidnap the Sandy Claws _
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04:33:37 PM, Wednesday 26 March 2003

And by way of explanation: SSC. _
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01:06:50 PM, Tuesday 25 March 2003

Shameful Short Confession: the most satisfying fast food experience I've ever had was eating at a Burger King in London in 1996, at the height of the Mad Cow scare. _
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01:04:45 PM, Tuesday 25 March 2003

Nothing--nothing at all, ta--says SJC like a genuine sophist backpack. Brought to you by the awesomeness of Neil. _
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03:17:08 AM, Tuesday 25 March 2003

Fri, Apr 25
 America West Airlines 630
  OAK to LAS     Departs 9:29pm, Arrives 10:50pm
 America West Airlines 778
  LAS to BWI     Departs 11:18pm, Arrives 6:42am +1
Sun, Apr 27
 America West Airlines 777
  BWI to LAS     Departs 8:16pm, Arrives 10:19pm
 America West Airlines 879
  LAS to SFO     Departs 11:56pm, Arrives 1:21am +1

See you there. _
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12:43:45 AM, Tuesday 25 March 2003

Cosma Shalizi, who has been doing wonderful, intelligent things on the web for several years now, has finally gotten himself a blog. This is a happiness.
[via Pedantry] _
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08:54:23 PM, Monday 24 March 2003

A good article on developing Movable Type plugins. _
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06:11:31 PM, Monday 24 March 2003

The Guardian: I call the embassy. Is Panama secretly a member of the coalition of the willing? "Well, actually," says the spokesman, "just today the central American presidents will make a declaration about the war." In it, will Panama come out in support of US and British action against Iraq. "How?" Any how. "We aren't sending anyone to the Gulf." Is Panama offering the coalition of the willing moral support? A short pause. "Not really," says the spokesman, thinking it over. "No. Not really."

Emma Brockes makes some calls to try and figure out what--if anything--the Coalition Of The Willing actually does. _
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04:52:25 PM, Monday 24 March 2003

Documentation for the MySQLXPCOM library, which lets Mozilla applications access MySQL databases. Share and enjoy! _
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04:34:11 PM, Monday 24 March 2003

A very happy birthday to Cassie Sherman! _
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12:03:18 AM, Monday 24 March 2003

The Internet Archive resurrects the glory days of Forum 2000, complete with the hall of fame. Using the full historical index, you can watch its entire history: its shutdown due to financial crisis, its resurrection on Objectivist principles as Forum 3000, and, ultimately, its apotheosis as Forum 18446744073709551615. (All this linkage inspired by Scott's link to Forum XP.) _
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06:14:58 PM, Friday 21 March 2003

If you think some black humour might make it easier for you to get through the day, there's a new Get Your War On out. _
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03:37:21 PM, Friday 21 March 2003

"To exit gracefully is sublime, as Heifetz understood. And only one species is capable of choosing a similarly graceful exit; all others march on like robots. To call time on the human race by choice, not necessity, would be the final victory of the human spirit over animal nature, an absolute emancipation from the diktat of DNA. Precisely because no other known life-form could do or even conceive such a thing, humanity must."

I was just reminded of The Economist's classic article on the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. VHEMT was amusing already, in a playfully extremist sort of way, but their revision of it into The Most Stylish Thing Any Species Will Ever Accomplish is sheer genius. _
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01:10:26 PM, Friday 21 March 2003

"Everybody loves fetal pigs!" _
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12:27:20 AM, Friday 21 March 2003

I oppose this war. I distrust our reasons for it, and I believe it will do more harm than good. However, since we have gone to war, I'd like to say that what Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins said to his troops is exactly what needed to be said, and describes the spirit in which all soldiers in this war should act. _
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11:05:41 PM, Thursday 20 March 2003

Sources For News About The War

In the effort to have some clue about what's going on, I've just been assembling a small collection of pages with reasonably reliable, frequently updated news about the war in Iraq. I'm not really sure I want to know, but I kinda feel like I have to, so I figure I may as well share my links.

CNN has a War On Iraq page and a War Tracker page with the latest news. I'm not crazy about CNN, but I'm using it to have some idea of what most of the rest of the country is seeing on television.
The Christian Science Monitor has a special page on the war, and a weblog-style page with the latest news, updated regularly throughout the day.
NPR has a page that collects all their material on the war, with the latest news at the top, weblogwise. Most of it is audio, of course.
The Guardian has a special report page on Iraq, with the latest news down the middle of the page weblog-style and links to more detailed information on the left.
The BBC has an in depth page on the war. It's organized by category, rather than by time, so it's probably not the best place to go for breaking news, but could be good if there's something specific you're looking for. They also have an interesting experiment going where several of their reporters are keeping logs of their personal impressions and experiences.
The Economist doesn't have a page specifically dedicated to the war, but they have a War in Iraq section on their front page, and their Country Briefing on Iraq collects most relevant articles, as well as having good general information about the country. (Note that some, but not all, of the articles are subscription-only.)
Stratfor has a frighteningly in-depth subscription-only site on the war, $50 for a six month subscription. I'm not buying one myself--frankly, I find the idea a little offputting--but the Stratfor people really do know their stuff, so if you want that level of detail, it may well be worth it.
If you use an RSS reader, Andy Rhinehart has prepared an RSS feed for AP war coverage.
Sean Paul Kelley is posting obsessively regular updates drawn from various sources on his weblog, The Agonist.
Kevin Sites, a CNN correspondent in Iraq, is also keeping a personal weblog of his experiences there.
L.T. Smash is the (obviously pseudonymous) weblog of an American soldier in Iraq. Not much news or analysis, but an interesting perspective to have on the war.
Where is Raed?, which I mentioned in the previous entry, is the weblog of Salam Pax, and offers another perspective you won't see much of: that of an Iraqi in Baghdad. I would urge everyone to read his recent well-argued rant about the war.

For my own reading, I think I'm going to rely mostly on The Guardian, the AP RSS feed, and the various personal weblogs, supplemented by the BBC and CNN, and the others when I have time for them. _
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06:14:14 PM, Thursday 20 March 2003

Just so this doesn't get lost in the mass of links of my next post: Salam Pax is an Iraqi blogging from within Baghdad. There's reasonably good circumstantial evidence that he's real, not a Kaycee Nicole type hoax. (Though of course the name is almost certainly a pseudonym.) _
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03:59:06 PM, Thursday 20 March 2003

"Just like MetaFilter except we discuss books instead of Metas." _
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01:49:09 PM, Thursday 20 March 2003

Note to fellow leftists: no argument you could possibly make, on any subject, will be strengthened by calling George W. Bush "unelected". You may joke about it when talking amongst yourselves, or even use it to help stir up a fighting spirit, but when it comes to debating things with your opponents, it will only ever hurt your case. This is true regardless of what you yourself believe about the election. Please remember this, and act accordingly. _
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07:39:15 PM, Wednesday 19 March 2003

Oh God, did Aronofsky also do Pi?

::suddenly has less desire to see Requiem for a Dream:: _
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04:38:40 PM, Wednesday 19 March 2003

...burrito coma. _
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04:36:47 PM, Wednesday 19 March 2003

DNS Stuff has a lot of useful... um... DNS stuff. Reverse DNS lookup, whois, ipwhois, traceroute, ping... a bunch of stuff like that. It was useful to me just now, and I suspect it will be useful again. _
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04:27:30 PM, Wednesday 19 March 2003

"Chicken is." _
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02:42:09 PM, Wednesday 19 March 2003

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia banned broadcast media from an appearance Wednesday where he will receive an award for supporting free speech.

I... I don't even know where to begin. _
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12:35:38 PM, Wednesday 19 March 2003

Full text of the speech from the previous entry, if you can't see RealVideo. _
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03:42:43 PM, Tuesday 18 March 2003

BBC News: Robin Cook has won an unprecedented standing ovation in the House of Commons after telling MPs why he resigned from the government over the looming war with Iraq.

Mr Cook said he could not back a march towards a war that did not have international and domestic support.

I strongly recommend watching the video of his speech. It's really excellent. Says just what needs to be said, and says it gently, decisively, and clearly. _
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11:24:59 PM, Monday 17 March 2003

vanadium oxide peeps
through surface from cool star's deep
convective mixing.

The Periodic Table of Haiku _
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12:32:02 PM, Monday 17 March 2003

A very happy birthday to Mirabai Knight! _
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11:54:54 AM, Monday 17 March 2003

They're like Hitler only moreso...
we'll rub their oil on our torso!
Hercubush! _
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10:54:57 PM, Thursday 13 March 2003

Sarah has a blog! _
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02:59:39 PM, Thursday 13 March 2003

How to tell if you're American _
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08:14:39 PM, Tuesday 11 March 2003

COVET! _
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02:34:18 PM, Tuesday 11 March 2003

Oh wow... why didn't anyone tell me earlier that Lore Fitzgerald Sjöberg has a weblog? So, so beautiful.
[via Sumana] _
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02:11:24 PM, Tuesday 11 March 2003

Fiasco! _
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01:00:08 PM, Tuesday 11 March 2003

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