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

This turned up via Metafilter yesterday:

How to write a best selling fantasy novel.

...Seems appropriate here, though I won't be surprised to discover that it's been a topic in the past.

Many thanks for the last paragraph.

I can never recite that word for word outside of church, notwithstanding the fact that I've recited it hundreds of times in church.

If you go digging deeply enough, you'll discover that Halliburton actually holds an entire IPv4 Class A allocation, assigned shortly after PGW1.

(FYI.)

::cringe::

Parsing news like that is... well, the experience of parsing news like that.

Warm thoughts.

What Avram said, and the entire piece might be summed up as follows:

If you had to tie yourself into a pretzel to write that part, you might advise the reader that they can instead spend that reading time on a visit to the bakery for a real pretzel.

Perhaps I'm brave or even bigheaded for going there, but such was my takeaway.

(I wish he'd raised the business of the turtle in Grapes of Wrath for contrast... and I devour Steinbeck, all the same.)

...What Erik said.

I dunno how Sleepycat's Perl interface works, but with PHP it's smooth as pudding.

For all that, IMO an SQL derivative is a better choice for high-traffic, MT-powered sites like the ones 'round these parts.

...So if I grew up reading way too many books in and out of the house of a grandmother who sold yarn & supplies for a living, what did that make me?

(I always figured she had geek cred, stately as she is, and now I know how to put a name on it. Hee.)

'Sides which anyone with an eighth-grade education and an Web-connected PDA can do a good sight better...

Does that mean that they're gonna start putting surveillance on meter maids and business travellers?

Surreal.

...Literary criticism.

Heh. I did the literalist-Creationist-bashing on my own site back over the summer - check the comments, and beware f-bombs (the topic originally addressed was upsetting on a personal level).

Pardon the horn-tootin', I've been waiting for a good time to disseminate that entry to a broader audience...

It trips me out. The literalists say they have all the answers, when according to the Bible in which they purportedly believe it's made repeatedly clear that faith is about learning to accept that one doesn't have all the answers. Bueller?

I suppose it's gauche to edit the editor, 'specially after so much time has passed, but the subjective clause "I recommend" is inadvertently repeated in the sixth graf of the post.

I make that sort of mistake on about every third or fourth post.

Guh.

This post of yours - and its comments - is begging from me a regurgitation of thoughts WRT fear-based vs. love-based attitudes...

...George III's malice, 'scuse me.

Those wishing to garner historical context may find this summary of the Great Awakening to be of use.

I personally see a direct connection between Sinners and the litany of George II's malice published in the Declaration of Independence... notwithstanding the fact that so many of the Founding Fathers were Deist rather than outwardly Christian.

This reference quite utterly rawks.

Had someone suggested to me, when we studied this sermon in my Honors American Lit. class (for its implications of Colonial attitudes towards faith) thirteen years ago to the month, that I'd be listening to it again...

Thanks, anyhow. ::grin::

More on comment spam (illuminating):

invoice?

"Individuated"?

I know, I know. But my brain tripped all over it.

::scratches head::

I'm done being a dork now. Apologies. (Yes, really.)

In the case of 'politics is corrupt,' if we believe it, it gives an 'everyone does it' pass to those politicians who really are corrupt, and it only makes things harder for those politicians who really are honest.

Here's the malfunction: politics as it's played in the States at the federal level is to a great degree a closed loop. Nader was shut out of the '00 primaries; Perot in '92 was a constant target of ridicule from both sides.

Now we have Dean running, and indications that (at least some) Democrats are closing ranks against him.

The Republicans, meanwhile, tell people who want to be told what they ought to think, what they ought to think, and have been for upwards of thirty years.

At least, that's what I see: a cynical process, driven by manipulation of mass media.

That is why I shrug and wait to be convinced. Or maybe I'm just burnt out for now when it comes to giving a damn.

Kris obviously knows a lot more than I do - the thing about the Internet is that if I don't read the paper first thing in the morning, I wind up learning about its contents from someone three thousand miles away. Pfah.

[Insert my own The Only Thing Stopping This Native Oregonian From Hating That Sonofabitch Is Principle rant here]

The book is earthshattering because of its publicity, and because it's a rare creature - a comparatively coherent yet readable narrative of the kind of stunts that get pulled.

Don't be mistaken - liberals get their fingers into the same pies. (See also unions and casinoes.) Conservatives rant about it all the time.

My takeaway is that politics is a dirty game... that just happens to affect our day to day lives more often than it ought. ::frown::

I giggle, because if Fox News had had the good sense to let it go, it probably would've been lumped in with other notable contemporary tracts, instead of being skylined against them... but now the inquisitive are reading it, wondering what lies between its pages, that frightens people so much.

I live in a progressive community (Portland), was brought up by progressive parents (teachers, teachers everywhere), and as a Russian Studies major in an erstwhile life developed an attitude as the years went on that was, er, progressively hostile toward anything smelling of socialism.

So I've kept my mouth shut about taxes, become something of a libertarian in any event.

At the same time, I've spent progressively greater amounts of time in studying the Bible, praying, and making the needed examination of the way I live and regard the people around me.

And this entry finally gave me the answer to beliefs on fiscal policy I've wanted to adopt all along -

"The've got their American Dream, and they can damned well foot the bill for it."

My own contribution, from the stack of found references:

http://www.io.com/persist1/logs/987932498.html

Though in the Geeky Meme-Mangling Dept. I find this far more amusing:

http://www.io.com/persist1/logs/1034364738.html

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