The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Nabil:

The "big ticket" issues aren't as big a concern to me, since frankly they're politicians and are going to spin it however gets them better numbers. It's the smaller issues, and how they vote on THEM that concerns me.

For me, that means I'd rather Obama over Clinton, any day. Of course, it doesn't really matter: the state I'm in does partisan primaries, and for religious reasons, I can't declare a party, so I'm sort of shut out of the primaries.

Great article and sum up of what's going on in the fan fic debate. Thanks for writing this.

And that's not even getting into the notability cancer - the idea that, in an encyclopedia of infinite capacity, there are reasons to outright exclude vast swaths of subject matter from any consideration.

Amen. I love the concept of Wikipedia, and I still use it for when I want to grab some quick information on a topic, but the "prune it if possible" mentality is infuriating and seems to completely contradict the original intent of the project. I've had friends who have been published, and been reviewed in multiple newspapers (actual dead-trees print, plus online), and still get deleted for "notability".

Wikipedia remains a good idea in principle, but needs a SERIOUS refresh and reset. Sadly, I'm not sure if it can really be saved... the mentality is too entrenched.

Regarding Pan's Labyrinth... yeah, I'm kind of surprised to not see it listed, either. It'd be interesting to find out whether it simply didn't get the votes, or if it was held back for next year, since while it was technically released in 2006, it didn't receive a non-limited US release until January.

Or maybe I'm just being hopeful because I think it totally deserves the nod.

Congrats to all of you nominated!

I come at this from a slightly different perspective: the forum posting industry is just as offensive (if not moreso) than blogger shills. While it's easy enough to pitch as "we'll get your forums started", the reality is that more often than not, they're hired by companies to go into general forums to shill their product by building (and manipulating) user trust. Within gaming circles, this has been a point of outrage for many months, since several groups were "outed". In particular within the gaming industry, where our media is already so compromised by corporate influence that our only remaining source of even moderately unbiased opinion is forums, this behavior is patently unacceptable.

This, to me, is more outrageous and offensive than putting up on your own blog things you don't really believe. What you do with your web space is your business, and while I'm not in favor of that particular practice, it's your choice. It's not going to generate user confidence if you're constantly shilling products, however, especially if they prove to be unacceptable time and again. The process is inevitably doomed to failure.

Though really, I'd rather see both practices simply go away. It's nice to dream...

I understand the purpose of political parties and why they were created, but that doesn't mean I agree that they are necessary any more. As information becomes increasingly more freely available, it becomes easy enough to pull up information on anyone choosing to run on your own to see how they specifically feel about the issues that are important to you. Considering how bloated and overreaching the current political parties have become, you arguably would end up more likely to be voting for someone that fits your priorities than by voting by party. There's too much of a spectrum within both parties to be remotely representational. Even when it comes down to supposedly core values, at this point you get diametrically opposed views within the same party.

That, to me, suggests it's time to look at trying something new.

Does it mean doing away with the sort of financial backing and support you get with the party system? Yes. I don't feel this is a bad thing, however. The government subsidizes the parties as it stands: what about taking that money and using it to fund an even-playing-field political caucus with full disclosure and profiling of anyone who wishes to present themselves as a candidate?

Oh, and Teresa, I'm aware that I'm looking for something of a white elephant with true non-partisanship, but I never claimed to not be a Don Quixote. I think it's a windmill worth tilting at. :)

Leave it to The Onion to get it exactly right. ;)

Pretty happy about Rumsfeld stepping down. Pretty happy that Santorum is out finally. Pretty happy that we've installed a socialist into the Senate, where hopefully he'll continue to actually look out for the people like he did as the Vermont Representative.

Not so happy that Lieberman made it back in (though possibly for different reasons than most here, namely his anti-video game legislation that utterly ignores constitutional free speech protections... which incidentally is co-authored by Clinton, so I'm not exactly happy to see she made it back either, though in that case it was at least an honest case of lesser of two evils). Would have preferred it if the Senate was a bit more clearly won instead of being in that straddle-the-line squabbling area AGAIN.

All in all, fair enough results, but I'm not holding my breath that this means much of anything. We're exchanging one set of liars for another, using an utterly compromised electoral system. As far as I'm concerned, until we do away with partisan politics, we're never going to see a more honest, fair, representational government. (To be honest, the "vote the party line!" propaganda that's been running in the past few posts, while well intended, made my skin crawl and feel exceedingly unwelcome and uncomfortable. I'm sincerely hoping the political furor will taper back a little bit now that the election is over.)

Yeah, I've been getting more and more of the undeliverable spam myself. I'm still reluctant to turn off the catchall feature, though lord knows why: I can count the amount of legit email I've caught through it on one hand.

Good luck with it, and I wait with baited breath if you discover any way to correct the situation without turning off catchall.

I remain of the firm opinion that we simply have no real idea how the universe actually works, and that the universe likes to change how it works when we're not looking (kind of personifying quantum mechanics, so to speak). We make bold guesses, which are then "proven facts" until years, decades, even centuries later, someone comes along and decides that we're wrong, and it's actually x.

I'm perfectly content to let glass be its quirky self. It's not a fluid, but it's not a normal solid either. It doesn't "flow" per se, in most situations, but I've seen fractured glass heal itself completely before (while I didn't put it under a microscope, under a jeweler's loupe at least, it was entirely gone). I don't really care what we use to explain that, I just think it's neat. :)

This is a fabulous quote. I find it really refreshing and encouraging to see people IN the publishing industry who feel the same way I do. *goes back to lurking*

Always interesting to come into things in a post-disemvoweled world... it was interesting to see personal politics and grinding axes pop up in a post that was essentially just "Dude, what you said isn't cool, I didn't even get a chance to respond, take it up with me next time."

Relax, people.

Doug, you've certainly shed some considerable light about this subject that has really given me pause to think about whether we're becoming just as guilty of witch hunting as "the other side." (I don't want to call them Republicans or Democrats or Liberals or Conservatives, because it's all bullsnarky pigeonholing anyway.)

Don't get me wrong; I strongly disagree with DeLay and his cronies, and hope he's ousted from office for his behavior. This post really does make me feel like we're just looking for an excuse to get outraged again.

Hmm, utilizing your first amendment rights to try and bring down a group that tries to protect your first amendment rights.

Ironic, that.

It feels to me like they heard about Clinton's book, "It Takes a Village", and took the title as validation to interfere in other people's lives.

Kids are far more resilient than people give them credit. Do the best you can. 9 times out of 10, that's enough to get them to adulthood in some semblance of sanity.

I'm simultaneously sorry to hear how bad things have become and glad to know that you've figured out what was causing it. So much involving brain chemistry is just casting around in the dark. It's a relief when we find solutions that seem to actually work.

I hope you have a speedy return to "normalcy".

The lurking reader
Comes out of his cave rarely,
Posts, then hides again.

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