Sometimes when I talk about how wealthy we are in this country, people don’t believe it. If you think you are struggling and another $10,000 finally would bring you much needed happiness, punch your income into this website and open you eyes to where you stack up against the world. http://www.globalrichlist.com/

I told her I wish I could have a dog. She asked why and I realized that I like the idea of coming home to a “fat, dumb & happy to see me dog” — cats seem to have a lot less of that characteristic. She answered that she preferred cats because they didn’t love you automatically, were moody & had to be seduced a little. Hmmph, my own children make me run around the living room chasing them down for a hug. Why would I want a moody cat stalking around my house with an aloof coy grin on it’s face?

Predictably, people are talking the "keep the Christ in Christmas talk" which is followed by Young Joel‘s annual "keep the Saturn in Saturnalia talk."

Ironically enough, some churches are cancelling their Sunday morning service because Sunday happens to inconveniently fall on Christmas Day. You can read an article on it in the NYTimes. (Sorry you’ll have to register or something and this link will prolly only work for a week or so –talk to the NY Times about it.)

When Christmas Falls on Sunday, Megachurches Take the Day Off

You can add my church to the list. Good thing people are used to Easter falling on a Sunday.

Reminds me I haven’t posted the link to the "Keep the Chan in Chanuka" t-shirt.

[Link Courtesy of The Revealer] 

The Vatican is taking up the issue of limbo — the place not the dance. I wonder what it’s like to sit in on a meeting where you decide on a position that potentially affects the belief system of millions of people and will likely be in force for hundreds of years. Is it like everything else in life, where one person drones on and on until the rest throw in the towel? Is there a guy who wisecracks during the meeting?

If you aren’t familiar with limbo, check out the limbo article in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Personally it seems like a made up concept, but most religious constructs appear that way to some degree.

It must be mandatory that every blogger weighs on Katrina, here goes …

Life is Suffering

I’ve been thinking about this simple phrase for months. Everywhere around me I see suffering; seeing it at the scale of Katrina is rending. I can’t begin to wrap my head around the loss and tragedy.

People Are Worse Than I Think

Its amazing to me how quickly people people beat a path to their soapbox explaining how their way of looking at the world would have made things better — more government, more bush, less bush, less government, more jesus, less jesus, more green, more action, less talk, more compassion, more troops, more guns, less guns, less carbon dioxide, more justice. I have no patience for anyone who wants to extract political profit from human tragedy. In addition to the oppourtunistic self serving hordes, there appears to be an unlimited supply of morons.

People Are Better Than I Think

I love the hero stories of the rescue workers and the people pouring themself out for people they never knew. Anyone who puts themselves in harm’s way for another has my respect and gratitude.

A Closing Thought

I’ve read some eloquent thoughts in the last few days. I’ll share one of my personal favorites.

How Software Companies Die, by Orson Scott Card. Originally published in Windows Sources, March 1995, but now floating around the internet in about 200 places.

Pope John Paul II will likely be the last Polish pope in my lifetime. I’m a little sad to see him go. He seemed like a good pope as these things go.

To avoid sounding tacky I’ll wait until the funeral is over to start campaigning to be the next Pope.

One of my favorite copyright activist groups takes up the Eyes on the Prize issue.

Seriously folks, it appalls me that copyright law, which is intended to encourage the producers of intellectual goods, serves now to squelch the dissemination of history. I knew when I first read Right to Read that knowledge would eventually be locked up by media corporations. It sickens me to see it happen.

I haven’t finished the entire 9-11 Commission Report yet. I have always been enjoyed reading these types of reports. I remember practically salivating over the “Tower Commision Report”, when it became available.

Here are some thoughts in no special order.

• It was reccommended that the U.S. government sponsor public education in muslim states to replace, or at least compete with the religious madras, which have become the only alternative to no education in some poor rural parts of the islamic world. This seems like a really sensible long term strategy. Unfortunately, no one is really talking about this idea much. This policy also has a high political risk as opponents could charge “They’re funding education in Pakistan, why won’t they spend money here in the U.S?”
• Evidently, no is responsible. This, of course, grates on me a bit. i know the commission probably had to approach things this way in order to get broad cooperation, but still it seems like a lot of government entities got a “get out of jail free card.”
• Although it only appear obliquely in the report
  “The only information that actually referred to a hijacking in this period was a walk-in at an FBI office in the United States who mentioned hijackings among other possible attacks. The source was judged to be a fabricator.”, p. 535, para 2″

  This guy walks into the FBI office and tried to confess, but no one believed him. I don’t know why this story didn’t get more press.[Links CBS, uktimes, MSNBC, ]

• It’s apparent that there isn’t a very nimble infrastructure for communication between government agencies. I think if they all had access to some sort of secure irc the coordination could have been much better.
• Making this document available electronically is fantastic. The effort that people went to to remix the report, make it searchable, or reformatting it was very cool.

I have the following suggestion for policy makers. (I haven’t yet finished the report, so this idea might still be buried in there somewhere.)

HomeLand Security should have a bi-partisan board of governors who vote to raise and lower the threat levels. The governors should be appointed to serve staggered terms and care should be taken to ensure they are qualified and that both political parties are represented. They should be appointed by the President and vetted by Congress.

I don’t think our democratic system is doing too well with all the partisan rhetoric surrounding this issue. Restoring some trust in this system needs to be high priority goal.

Now online, figure out which neighbors are contributing to which political parties. Creepy and interesting at the same time. Seen on Dave’s Picks, who is also a former LM’er.