Very nicely delineated.
I suspect most people use their own words. After all, why write if it isn't yours? What a sample letter is good for is suggesting pace, approach, and length.
Alas, I think your opinion of the initiative and amount of energy "most" people is higher than mine. I've written sample lobbying letters for our community, and the copies that people send me of what they signed and sent to our legislators are often simply my words on their letterhead.
But imagine if Charles Stross had won all the categories for which he was voted....
FWIW, I voted for Obama because I wanted to choose inspiration over pragmatism. Xopher, I deeply respect your fears and understand why you are voting as you are. For myself, I am of the belief that it *is* possible to protect you and others with similar concerns from the evil that has permeated our society under the guise of "family values" without needing to resort to open assault -- but that is my personal belief.
will @8
And is Kucinich's support for Obama purely a fit of pique about Edwards and Clinton suggesting there were too many people in the debates?
Personally, I think Kucinich backs Obama because they share a preference for idealistic optimism over cynical pragmatism (something which I, myself, think is a good thing.)
I live in the mountains in SoCal, so often have to drive through changing conditions (dry at the bottom of the hill, ice and snow coming home.) For this sort of thing, I HIGHLY recommend Spikes Spiders instead of chains.
I've been able to be listening to a song on the radio, pull over, get out, snap on the Spiders, and listen to the end of the same song when I got back in the car. I've also pulled over to let someone pass and discovered myself in an unseen, snow-filled ditch: I snapped a Spider to the one wheel I could access and was able to drive myself out with no problem.
The one caveat is that they are not as easy to remove, since the tire flattens out a bit and moves the lock slightly off-center. I still loved them.
I put a lot of effort in trying to absorb information, withholding judgment and remaining calm in order to have enough energy to actively try to make things better.
But reading the litany of screwups and lack of basic preparation prior to 9/11 that resulted in so many more unnecessary deaths, I find myself becoming furious.
FWIW, I live in the SoCal San Bernardino mountains, although we were never personally in danger from the latest round of fires. However, I took advantage of the situation to link to your previous treatises on preparedness (down at the bottom), including a link to the Doyle/MacDonald jump kit lists. Thank you so much for the info -- it does help when there's something you can do to prep for this sort of thing.
Okay, I have got to link to this detailed, um, review:
HP&tDH: practically page by page
"Grey" is a colloquialism?
From #35
I did French in high school, and while I don't retain much vocabulary, somewhere deep in my mind I've learnt that French is what people speak when they're not speaking English.
When I have to communicate with anyone who's not an English speaker I have to suppress the urge to speak to them in French.
My problem is that, as much as I love languages, I'm a bit of a dilettante. Because of this, I tend to subconsciously categorize things as "English" and "not-English," which unfortunately has me occasionally spewing forth complete incoherencies made up of bits of French, Spanish, Serbian and Russian. Not real useful.
I know this is an ancient thread, but it seemed the most appropriate place to link to someone else's take on the slushpile:
The Guardian: The Shocking Truth About The Slushpile.
It was my first job out of university: I was bright-eyed and idealistic and imagined that I might become some kind of beneficent tweedy sprite, conveying the writing of unknown literary artistes to the masses. By the time I left my job in publishing a few weeks ago, my idealism was in tatters, destroyed by the piles of typescripts I received from people who told me that their fondest desire was to write full time while sitting in a villa overlooking the Mediteranian, despite the fact that they didn't know how to spell it.
Pete @ 10:
Actually, if you look at the "L" in "DELETE," you will see that DISEMVOWEL is actually spelled correctly (it's just that the "L" has a really tiny foot.)
Serge @ 15: "I am the Deceiverer!"
Oh, thank goodness I wasn't drinking anything when I read this; I'm trying to keep my desk clean.
re: kids/YA books
Are Asimov's Lucky Starr books still in print? Not only are they aimed at about that age, but according to the Wikipedia entry, supposedly the "Force-blace" may have inspired the Light Saber in Star Wars.
Lizzy @2: War on Terrah
I realize that that's probably supposed to be an affectation of "terror," but it's the first time I made the connection that the current Administration is actually waging a War on Terra....
I really loved the Levi's ads from the 70s -- they had a series of great animated ones for a while. Any idea where I can find them? YouTube doesn't seem to go that far back, and RetroJunk doesn't have the ones I remember (something about trains....)
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 2 |
| 2008 | 4 |
| 2007 | 11 |
| 2006 | 1 |
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