At least the ACLU is fair-minded and racially tolerant. "He’s married to a white person." Indeed. Question: does anyone really believe there's enough racism left in this country for anyone to even have the capability of filling the "Uncle Tom" role? — which I assume was the gist of the pejorative statement of Thomas' marital status.

Link via LD

What I wanna know is Has anybody used IE6 yet? Yes/No? Good/Bad?

Mr. KABC has a great and informative set of Q&A regarding California's faux-power crisis. Also, be sure to read "10 Things Edison and Governor Lowbeam Are Doing to Mess Up Your Life." *sigh* It's the people in power who give the having of power a bad name.

Crouching Tiger Spoiler Alert!
I'm shocked - Shocked! - to find that misinterpretation has been going on in here. It's amazing to me how many people don't understand the ending of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I'm dumbstruck by the number of my friends who, like Mark, imagine that the film ends in tragic suicide, when even partial attention to the story's mythology reveals that Of Course That's Not What Happens.

Ziyi Zhang's doll-like character, Yu Jen, leaps in faith from the mountain heights in order that her wish of living again in the desert with her love, Lo, might come to realization. This is why Lo does nothing to stop her — though he might not trust the power of the mountain entirely, he believes that their love will survive. She quite obviously does not fall to her doom, but rather flies at speed toward her new destiny. The film is all about destiny: and hers is to live happily ever after — though she must make supreme sacrifice to gain that happily ever after.

En explicado: Why "Cheval Mort"? (the really short version)

Over the recently passed two months, I have been getting a lot of flack from several quarters over the content of my site. It began (in some respects) when a young man who didn't like the way I interpret the Bible visited the site to see what he could see. He then showed his father some of the stuff that he could see. His father was very angry and took his anger to the elders of his church. They became flustered as well and asked to meet with me personally to discuss my site's content. As it turned out, they didn't have a problem with the things I said so much as in the manner I said them. Specifically, a big sticking point to them was "I'll say "no" and spare you all the embarrassment of accidentally saying "yes" and demonstrating to all the world that you've been eating retard sandwiches again." They really didn't like "retard sandwiches." I'll have to be honest, here. I still read that line and chuckle. I guess humour is lost on the humourless (natch). In any case, I apologized for offending and agreed to do what I could to tone down the lambastic talk-radio voice in which The Dane seems so comfortable speaking in. That meeting preciptated the online apology as well. Okay, so I had thought the storm passed, but this was only to be a taste of what would come. Since then, I had picked up several avid readers who were more than willing to misunderstand what I write and why I write, and parlay that into character assasination. In the end, it came down to several people (my girlfriend included - in order to save the two of us from having to constantly explain why I am not Evil) requesting I cease the blog. The idea was repellent to me since it would deny the whole experiment. I spent two blogless weeks thinking about what to do (and mulling over other difficulties in my life) and decided upon a new plot. Hence: "Blogging a Dead Horse" is now called "Blogging un Cheval Mort"; it's in a new directory; and best yet, it's not linked from any other part of the site. The only way in is via links from other websites or to know the actual url. This, I think, will solve my problem as none of the touristas who were making my life difficult are either Internet saavy or frequenters of any of the linking blogging community. It may even take a long time for Google to find my pages since they're not linked from the home page. Hope this makes some sense to you cats. It didn't make much to me and I experienced it all.

Here's a few more remarks (to the discussion at Jim's place):

With regard to an imminent suicide attempt, I think I would trust my friends' judgment on the appropriateness of intervention in the matter long before I would trust a bumbling government (bilingual education, the welfare state, or the IRS anyone?). For that matter, I'd trust them long before a non-bumbling government as well. I'm not even certain that is part of the government's constitutional arena of power.

But I think this raises another interesting point: do my friends or anyone have the moral freedom (or even obligation) to intervene in such a decision by force? Or should they keep their intervention on the level of intellectual coercion wherein they attempt to reason me out of my misfounded conviction? I haven't really thought about this one, so am willing to be persuaded in either direction pending sufficient evidence.

Next. Jim, you say that Libertarianism is really pretty utopian and relies upon unpredictable human actors. Now what this has to do with Hollywood is beyond me! [That was a joke] In reality, I think, Libertarianism recognizes the depravity of the human condition and rejects the possibility of any kind of utopian society. When we get down to brass tacks, the ideology believes that the best of society will of course be motivated by the moral responsibility and foundation intrinsic to their upbringing, while the worst of society will be motivated by simple self-preservation and greed. Where Goldberg mistook Libertarians for sanctifying this greed is where their ideology takes it into consideration and utilizes it to its maximum benefit.

I think really that out of all the political systems of which I've heard, Libertarianism takes the most cynical/realistic perspective of humanity while pragmatically using that cynicism to its greatest benefit to society.

Omigosh!! Am I young enough to be a zealot?

Alright. Yes, you knew I would have to weigh in on this one. Is this just your sly fashion of drawing my fingers back to the keyboard?

Jonah Goldberg portends he is going to present some interesting arguments and perhaps accusations against Libertarianism. Alas. Such was not to be the case. Rather than point out genuine flaws in a political ideology, his merely picks on the politic's youthful neophytes who, just as all youthful neophytes, are very excited by an idea or system of ideas that they don't yet fully grasp. How this is a valuable article escapes me.

I can remember when some of my friends first encountered Calvinism. The knew it was right, but bourne out of a youthful arrogance and a certain ignorance of the position they now believed, they spoke radically and with an intolerant fervor. I've witnessed the same pattern in the youthful neophytes of apologetic systems, veganism, gay rights activism, Religious Right activism, the Republican platform, film appreciation, home schooling, and a veritable host of other arenas. Goldberg himself even mentions the youthful propensity for this sort of behavior.

So the question is: "Fine. You've identified the fact that children behave childishly. So what does this have to do specifically with Libertarianism?"

He almost answers this by claiming that Libertarians wear their ideology on their sleeve (thus attracting the youth by truckloads). But really, don't all ideologies do this? Liberalism certainly does. The Religious Right certainly does too. As do vegans. As do minority rights groups. Perhaps the difference is that Libertarians are better united in their vision of what their ideology really is (cf. Liberalism's lack of unity on what they really stand for); I don't know.

Then Goldberg goes on to berate a girl for not having the understanding of logic, argumentation, and common fallacies to avoid his trap. Well, he might as well have been berating her for this. He presents the girl with a paper tiger and the girl, believing it real, is rightfully fearful of what to say to it. Goldberg's argument makes an unjustifiable equivocation. He says (after postulating that its okay to hold down a friend who is intent on committing suicide):

If it's moral for one person to use force to keep a friend from committing suicide — under these specific circumstances — would it be wrong for two people to do it? I mean, what if you're not strong enough to keep her from killing herself? Can you ask another friend to help? Again, the answer is supposed to be yes. From there it's downhill. Okay, so if it's right for two people, how about ten? If it's right for ten, how about a hundred? If a hundred, how about a thousand? And so on.

Here he presents these "hundred" or these "thousand" as if they were to represent the government. The fact of the matter is that his argument promotes societal intervention rather than governmental. While he claims that "libertarian troopers have a very difficult time grasping that conservatives and Republicans aren't the same thing," he seems to have similar difficulty distinguishing between two far more different entities: society and government.

In his zealous fervor, Goldberg also seems to misunderstand the crux of Libertarianism. However much he would like to believe that the Libertarian ideology pivots on the sanctification of self-indulgence, the simply truth is that Libertarianism stands firmly upon self-responsibility.

I'm still not certain why Goldberg wrote the article. He couldn't have wanted to display cowardice by attacking not a position, but its neophyte supporters. He likely didn't mean to present poor arguments throughout to demonstrate just how little he grasps his opponents' position. And, as it's editor, he certainly didn't want to present NRO as a whine-rag. This is why I'm still uncertain of Goldberg's intent — because from my view, he accomplished all these things with flying colours.

I had the distinct pleasure(?) yestereve of watching Peter Brook's 1963 adaptation of William Golding's classic work, Lord of the Flies. While Golding makes his points well with the written word, I think Brook's cinematic rendering of the novel offers an even more forceful picture of human nature unfettered by socio-religious constraints. In response to those who thought Golding's point fanciful, Brook's responds that the only piece of Golding's fable that wasn't realistic is the fact that in his novel, the transformation from well-mannered to savage spans the length of three months; in reality, Brook's posits, the transformation would likely take place over one long weekend. Peter Brook lived with these 20 to 30 kids for three months and said many of their off-screen lives began to mirror the on-screen relationships. A truly scary movie.

The horse is dead. Long live the horse.