turtles can talk

The brain is the paper; the soul is the story.

Let's play a little game. Find the text I have inserted into this well-known parable.

And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?

And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he said unto himself, "Lo, each shall seek coverage for his medical expenses in the private market; I shall not tolerate socialism." And he passed by on the other side.

And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and said unto himself, "Behold! A preexisting condition!" And he passed by on the other side.

But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.

Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?

And he said, He that shewed mercy on him.

Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

Morse code is the only one-dimensional written language. Even though spoken language propagates just fine through one spatial dimension - or, converted to an electrical signal, through a one-dimensional wire. Hmm.

You can buy $1 coins in bulk from the mint!

That's so full of awesome! Er - I mean - Zounds! A box brimful o' treasure awaits in me mailbox!

I guess I'll be working on my church's website after all. I should have known I wouldn't be able to stay away.

I'm really surprised to learn that neither the United Methodist denomination nor the West Ohio conference supplies either server space or subdomain names for member congregations. If I were them, I'd set up a central server and give congregations domain names like umc.org/townsvilleumc - that would cost vastly less than each congregation renting their own from private vendors. Ah well. Maybe they're afraid of being held responsible for embarrassing content posted by the odd addled webmaster of Whackoville United Methodist.

Staying the night in Wawa, Ontario, far short of our intended destination for the night. I am enjoying this trip even more than I had hoped.

WOW the east shore of Superior is BEAUTIFUL! It's not that any one spot is the best in the world; it's more that you drive along, hour after hour, and every single moment it looks like a scene from a postcard. It's impossible to make any progress, because we keep stopping to enjoy places. Pancake Bay and the Sand River were especially nice stops.

The towns of northwest Ontario have a sort of back-in-time feel, in a good way - like the greedy 80's and delusions-of-grandeur 90's and paranoid 2000's never happened. There are lots of hitchhikers here (we'd take one if we weren't in a two-seater). The houses are very not-ostentatious - I've read that American incomes are higher than Canadian on average, but I suspect that Americans pour every dime of the difference and more into their houses, hoping that people will be impressed. Here, houses are for living in, not for showing off. (I think they do their showing-off with four-wheelers.)

Similarly, the hotel we're in (Beaver Motel) has a very pleasantly aged feel, clean and in good shape, but unmodern and unsophisticated - comforting, like staying at your aunt's house. There's a very friendly motel cat, too. But it's got wireless internet. Best of both worlds.

OK, I'm a border kid full of Canadian blood, so I'm probably not an impartial judge. But I'd really like to take this trip again, next time over a whole month...

Iranian president Ahmadinejad has explained to Iranians that Western countries - not (of course!) Iranians - are behind the green protest movement

This is a scandal. President Obama, if our Mass Hypnosis Satellites are capable of sending hundreds of thousands of Iranians into the streets, believing (ridiculously) that they are angry at their government, then why haven't we used the satellites to get a few Pashtuns to turn over bin Laden? Or to end the war in Iraq?

This is an unacceptable waste of our nation's sinister mind-control resources. I call for an immediate Congressional investigation. The President must be held accountable for his poor stewardship of our nation's techno-occult assets.

I get to go visit my family in Minnesota in July...

even better, I get to do what I've dreamed of every single time: take a little extra time and go north, around the Ontario side of Lake Superior, camping at least once en route.

Soooo happy!

The only thing that would top this would be riding an ore boat from Toledo to Duluth. I've got to find some taconite shipping company executives to suck up to.

Trying to plan the annual pilgrimage to northern Minnesota... I want so badly to get there by lake. Alas, passenger travel on the Great Lakes just doesn't exist anymore. I'm so very, very tempted to stow away on an ore boat...

You've probably heard about Dr. Tiller's murder in Wichita.

I'm pro-life (or, if you prefer, "anti-choice", "anti-woman", etc.) and trying to figure out what to do. Most of the pro-choice folks I read are suggesting donations to Planned Parenthood as a response. I'm sorry, I can't get on board with that. I'm open to suggestions... maybe a donation to Dr. Tiller's church?

It's true that there are kinds of speech which, though legal, though not technically part of a crime, though they won't be interpreted as invitations to murder by most hearers, nonetheless create a psychological atmosphere in which the unstable are more likely to commit murder. We recognize that, if a Wahhabist Islamic mullah preaches about how God really should strike Americans down - but he can't personally encourage terrorism - well, he's encouraging terrorism. Not legally, but morally, and he doesn't care. This is no different. Yes, you can always claim "but I didn't tell anyone to commit murder!" Legally, that will keep you out of jail. There are things which are legal but immoral.

I don't think the nation needs to work out a legal way to address this. I do think that the pro-life movement, and any other movement that hopes to avoid moral bankruptcy, need to figure out how to say what we believe and what we oppose clearly without setting the stage for violence - not even among the lunatic fringe. Even the insane are not immune to the opinions around them. There's a bell curve, in this as in all things, and that last 0.1% figures out where to stand based on where the 1% and 5% and 10% stand.

It's tricky, because when "duking it out" over abortion, it's more convenient if we assume that the good guys and bad guys line up on opposite sides. The truth is, there are people who are pro-choice because of genuine compassion, and people who are pro-life because of genuine compassion. There are also people who are pro-choice because they don't think poor people deserve living babies, and people who are pro-life because they think babies are good punishment for sexual misdeeds. There are people who are genuinely horrified at this murder, and there are people saying "well of course it's wrong BUT", and the former must divorce themselves from the latter. If you think you need to "win" the abortion "war", you start making alliances with people whose motives are pretty dark. Can you force those people to behave themselves? No... but you can reshuffle your priorities; preserving alliances within the movement isn't the most important thing, after all. You can tell Operation Rescue and Bill O'Reilly that they're doing it wrong and you don't want their support - and not wait for someone to die to say it. (As I just did; I haven't been keeping up with them). That's worth upsetting an alliance over. After all - if it is undertaken for God's sake - do you honestly think politically expedient moral compromises will help?

Did I mention that I now own a scythe?

Well, I do. For real. A scythe. And I use it. Woo!

Not as clumsy or random as a weed whacker... an elegant landscaping tool from a more civilized age.

A couple SF cons ago, I fell victim to the puppy eyes of novice authors and bought a couple self-published books.

Do you think that I damage my sensibilities by reading badly-written prose? I'm not sure yet the stories suck, but the writing quality is making me wince, muttering, "Stop that. Don't do that." every few seconds. If I push on, will I be making myself dumber?

"But, aren't the ridges in fingernails reinforcing? Wouldn't buffing them away weaken the nail?", I wondered. Answer: yes.

Yes, this is the most important development in my life over the last few months.

... well... OK, not really. I'm doomed; I can't seem to get through a shower without thinking of another software project I want to do.

Canadian friends, I'm curious for your comment here. I'm about 3/8 French-Canadian; help me get in touch with my ethnic heritage.

People in Quebec are still very, VERY touchy about how the British victory over New France is remembered.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., we had a Civil War that was more recent, infinitely bloodier, whose racial aftermath drags on still, with a shocking number of sympathizers still for the Confederacy... yet everybody thinks Civil War reenactments are great fun, southerners especially. In fact, Civil War nostalgia started up surprisingly quickly after 1865. It's as if the nation was promptly united in agreeing about how awesome it was to bleed each other white.

While there's been no significant southern separatist movement since 1865, southern regional identity remains strong (granted, without a linguistic barrier to enforce it).

Any opinions on why the difference?

... what do we call people who still try to change their delivery addresses on mailing lists by writing to the general list address? Then repeating angrily when it doesn't happen?

Even when we're driving through serious agricultural territory, passing two dozen cattle herds every hour, it's still almost impossible to resist the urge to alert all the other passengers in the car every single time.

It makes me wonder whether dairy farmers wake up every morning and shout to their families, "Ooh, look, everybody! COWS!"

I think Pres. Obama needs to appoint Cesar Millan as his Middle East envoy. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict may seem intractable, but wait until he arrives to project calm, assertive energy!

I wish I could take my whole salary in them. It would feel like I'd found a pirate treasure twice a month.

OMG MY XO IS HERE !!!1!

Herod never sucked up to Jesus.