Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/07/03/under-god-faq/
You may ask: “what about ‘Under God?'”
When I was growing up, I recited the Pledge of Allegiance every day. “One nation, under God, indivisible . . .” at first, I just went with it. Then I began to wonder why an Atheist should profess to “one nation, under God” . . . if I didn’t believe in God, wasn’t swearing that my nation was “under God” dishonest? Really, didn’t saying “one nation, under God, indivisible” basically negate, for an Atheist, the entire pledge? Was I lying? Was I being disloyal? (more…)
4 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/07/02/i-atheist/
These days when America’s leaders are trying to make the place look more “Christian” I worry a bit because old-fashioned Christianity has from time to time endorsed the torture and murder of non-Christians. (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/30/those-little-subscription-cards/
From: Danny Howard <dannyman@toldme.com>
To: themail@newyorker.com
Subject: Those Little Subscription Cards
Hello,
For generations, our species has been plagued by little slips of paper that fall out of magazines like The New Yorker when we are trying to read. This is very distracting, as the environmentally conscientious reader must bend down and pick these off the ground, and carry them over to the paper recycling bin. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/28/surfing-the-peak/
There’s a phenomenon called Hubbert’s Peak, named for the guy who correctly predicted that once the United States had consumed half of its oil reserves, that increasing demand would combine with diminishing supply to push prices steeply upward. From my reading, I have found that this prediction worked out domestically, but the oil prices didn’t shoot up because we have been successful at importing oil from overseas.
The really interesting Hubbert’s Peak, is when the world’s oil reserves will pass the 50% mark, at which point, unless we successfully adopt alternative energy, the oil prices will definitely shoot up a great deal, and they will never, barring a crash in the world economy, come down. I have read in a few places, that most predictions place that between between now and 2025 or so, 2012 seems to be the median. Some good advice I read said not to trust oil company estimates, because they try to over-estimate their reserves to improve their stock prices. There’s a decent chance that we are already at, near, or just a bit past, the peak: (more…)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/26/flag-burning/
The flag stands for our nation, and its values, including Freedom of Speech.
Our men are dying in Iraq, and our nation and our planet have far more serious problems than flag burning. Our nation is run by crooks who write laws to please whomever pays them the most. We are sacrificing our moral superiority by torturing people, many of whom turn out innocent, and Osama bin Laden is still on the lose, and you have the cojones to tell me it is illegal to be unpatriotic?
If the jingoistic idiots running our nation do manage to pull off that flag-burning amendment, I will only be able to conclude that our nation is in fact in deep sh_t, and the only adequate way to express that will be by burning the flag in public.
Unless I’m a big chicken.
4 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/25/uncle-john-avuncular-advice/
When Yayoi and I got married, we wanted to collect whatever wisdom our families had to offer on living together, translate it into English and Japanese, and have it available at the ceremony. That project kind of fell through, but we have some material and I want to keep it somewhere accessible. So, why not share with the Innernet? (more…)
4 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/23/quizzes-are-dumb/
I never do them.
But, somehow, I was oddly attracted to these. (Thanks, Keith!)
Which OS are You?
Which File Extension are You?
Damn.
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/20/evolve/
(more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/16/google-interview-advice/
Although I have not succeeded with the getting-hired-at-Google thing I have had my crack at it a few times and have survived to write about it. I occasionally hear from others about to try it, and they want to know if I have any advice. Here’s my modest wisdom on the subject of interviewing well at Google. (more…)
63 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/14/outrage-fatigue/
Joe told me he made a deliberate effort to stop reading political blogs, and I said that I never really did bother to read political blogs, because they generally don’t go past provoking self-righteous outrage at the other side, and since about 2003 or so I have definitely had “outrage fatigue.”
But that doesn’t mean I still don’t pay attention, and that doesn’t mean that I am ignorant of the outrages. I get a trickle of the worst, usually from The New Yorker, and that’s when I feel compelled to re-tell the stories of the greatest outrage.
Amnesty International recently referred to Guantanamo and other prisons like it as “the gulag of our times” or words to that effect, and the Bush Administration and conservatives flipped out over that . . . (that outrage!) because really, our suspending the Geneva Conventions and inprisoning a classified number of people throughout the world based on classified intelligence without ever charging them with a crime is nothing at all like the Soviet gulag, where millions of Stalin’s own citizens were worked to their deaths.
And you know, they have a point, or maybe I was daydreaming about something else when I read the chapter in “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” that was similar to this passage, from Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker, May 30, 2005: (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/13/dear-jesus/
A while back, I signed a petition for the American Family Association to oppose Ford’s support of gay people. I didn’t do this because I agree with them, but as a subversive act to put obviously bogus names on their petition. The idea being that if anyone ever reviewed their anti-gay petition, they would see that “Jesus McChrist” was definitely opposed to Ford’s gay ways.
Every time I see this e-mail, I get a little chuckle: (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/10/my-gay-fantasy/
So, I was reading, yet again, of the Army’s difficulty in signing up soldiers to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other places. The article wound down with the reminder that this could be alleviated somewhat, by allowing openly gay people to serve. And I started to concoct this little fantasy where somebody in San Francisco started signing up gay men, who pledge that they would serve in the military if allowed to do so. The thing catches on to other places and before you know it, you’ve got thousands of gay men who have pledged to serve.
But that’s not enough, right? So, they form companies (in the military sense) and start to drill on weekends as if they were the National Guard. Once they’ve gotten good, they organize a march on Washington, and suddenly the Mall is filled with the Pink Triangle Battalion. Squads of big beefy gay dudes are drilling in formation, on the mall, marching around the White House, the Capitol, and over to the Pentagon and back. “The military needs men, and we are ready.” The ranks could be filled out with fully uniformed veterans, who may be either gay, or simply “straight but not narrow minded.”
Or, if they really wanted to make a point, some of them could bivouac (Army camping) in some of the more far flung, shitty desert places of Texas, known for rabid conservatism. You get a company of armed, uniformed soldiers with pink triangles marching through your remote Texas town and first you’re like, “Hey! A military parade!” and then “Pink triangles … these are faggots!?” and then “Are those real guns?” and then “What are they doing here in Texas scaring the shit out of me, they should go to Iraq!”
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/09/typing-names/
As recently observed at work:
(16:19:06) taras: for centuries, my clan has insisted on only naming their children with names that can be typed exclusively with the left hand, b/c we knew that one day we might be working with a left-hand-typing-only system administrator
For those who have never seen me type, let me tell you that the above is an apt description of yours truly.
(16:35:04) sara: dman: note that ‘sara’ can also be typed only w/ your left hand
(16:35:22) ***sara sucks up to the sysadmin
It’s good to be root.
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/06/01/2001/
Yayoi and I finished watching _2001_ last night.
“So he was kidnapped by black pillar.”
That’s as good an explanation of that movie as any other I have heard.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/05/25/taurus-eschewed/
I get spam from Atlas, a maker of model train tracks, rolling stock, and other fun bits. Usually I chuck it in the SPAM folder but today I took a peek:
NOTICE! HO & N FORD TAURUS
We are sorry to inform you that the HO and N Ford Taurus models offered in the April mini-catalogs have been canceled due to insufficient orders to meet production minimums. All back orders will be canceled.
The Taurus has a reputation for being unappealing, but when even the model train enthusiasts turn their noses up, well, I have to chuckle.
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