Jo Walton @159 Yes!!!! Let the sunshine in...
Roberts was off tempo from the beginning. From the transcript:
ROBERTS: I, Barack Hussein Obama...
OBAMA: I, Barack...
ROBERTS: ... do solemnly swear...
Sigh.
Okay, okay, Pepsi. Yes, I have noticed that your new logo strongly resembles the Obama "O." Cute.
Madeleine @63: yes, I appreciated that. "...and non-believers." It's not the first time he's acknowledged us, but I really appreciate his doing it in the inaugural address.
@59 Yes, though I hope that people understand that Roberts was the one who fluffed, not President Obama.
Has anybody ever explained to Rick Warren the difference between a speech and a prayer?
Serge @20: According to Leonard Nimoy, Obama knows how to do a Vulcan salute.
SeanH @7: Yes, the term "president-elect" has been around for a while. It's possible that you're more aware of it now because Obama has been more active during the interregnum than is typical.
As for reason and facts: when giving a talk at Google earlier this year, Obama stressed the need to make decisions based on "reason and facts." Of course, this was to an audience friendly to this idea. But here's an excerpt from his "call to renewal" speech from a few years ago, to a group of evangelicals, that expresses a similar idea:
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons [this is only an example; he's pro-choice], but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. And if you doubt that, let me give you an example.
We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.
Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion.
But it's fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason.
xeger @174
Cool. Now to make it rhyme.
Meanwhile, may I suggest "L is for Linux, and open source penguins." (Matt insisted on the penguins.)
xeger @126
K is for Knuth, who someday will finish.
... and since you didn't finish the Babbage line,
B is for Babbage, who saw quite a difference.
If you really get stuck, you can start throwing in every language designer you can think of:
M, John McCarthy, who wrote with a LISP
S is for Stroustroup, who added to C
etc.
Note: I am not a programmer, but I live with one.
Lizzy @114 Yes, I've heard several other mentions of this problem lately -- most recently on NPR this morning (Talk of the Nation, I think), someone talking about a sudden increase in his Citibank card's rate. But I've heard of other banks doing it too.
I also pay off my card every month, so I don't generally notice the interest rate. But I do always check the payment due date as soon as I get my statement, because I got caught once when they moved it up a week -- it had always been due on the 21st or 22nd of the month, and then one month without warning it changed to the 14th or 15th, which I didn't notice until too late to get my payment in on time. Grrr. I guess the card company got tired of my not racking up any interest....
"Card agreement," indeed.
I was born a few weeks after JFK's assassination, so of course I have no memory of it. My mom says she was driving to an appointment with her OB when she heard the news on the radio. I don't remember the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy or Martin Luther King, though by that time I was old enough to form memories of them. I don't think I have what are usually described as "flashbulb memories." I can tell you approximately where and with whom I was when I heard about other big public tragedies, but I don't remember what it was like to get the news.
dcb @19 -- The U.S. has actually relaxed somewhat on the subject of dual citizenship. When my aunt became a British citizen in the late 1960's, she had to formally renounce her U.S. citizenship. The laws were changed sometime during the 1970's, so all of her children -- who were born in Britain when she was still a U.S. citizen -- are eligible for dual citizenship while she is not.
dcb @19 -- The U.S. has actually relaxed somewhat on the subject of dual citizenship. When my aunt became a British citizen in the late 1960's, she had to formally renounce her U.S. citizenship. The laws were changed sometime during the 1970's, so all of her children -- who were born in Britain when she was still a U.S. citizen -- are eligible for dual citizenship while she is not.
virtual sticker, I’m afraid, since I voted absentee.
An "I voted" sticker was included with my absentee-voting packet. A nice touch, I thought.
I'm a little afraid to go to bed -- what if I wake up and find out it was all a dream?
The race-baiting, the mud-slinging, the gutter tactics -- they didn't just fail, they backfired! Let future campaigns take note.
James @268 -- in the U.S. Senate, a filibuster can e ended with a vote of 60 Senators. Highly unlikely the Dems will get that majority, even counting Lieberman.
@109 Apropos of a conversation with my mom a little while ago, I started a chant of "No on 8!" My daughter, a natural-born contrarian who thinks contradicting her parents is the funniest thing in the world, started chanting "Yes on 8!" Luckily she is too young to vote, and I have 15 years to set her straight (as it were) on this issue.
I am on edge about this one.
Just heading off to deliver my absentee ballot to the polling place. Then off to math class. Nothing like calculus to drive out thoughts of politics! And then, let's see, I really need to buy a raincoat, and this might be a good day to get the last raised bed ready to plant winter vegetables. That ought to get me to about 4:30, which is when my mom goes home, leaving me to wrangle my almost-three-year-old daughter -- an excellent distraction. By the time she goes to bed it ought to be safe to turn on the TV.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 7 |
| 2008 | 29 |
| 2007 | 6 |
| 2006 | 5 |
| 2005 | 24 |
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