Friday, February 6, 2009

Right libertarian

That's about right (here, via dylan)

My Political Views
I am a right moderate social libertarian
Right: 6.25, Libertarian: 2.72

Political Spectrum Quiz

Thursday, February 5, 2009

A handy guide to Michael Hogan's amazing acting eye

Courtesy of my friends and fellow Battlestar Galactica geeks, Dan and Carrie Largent, the Saul Tigh Acting Eye Guide:
//_O The all-purpose Saul Tigh emoticon

'-] = Happy

`-[ = Angry

"-O = Surprised

*-} = Drunk

,-u = Looking in the mirror in the morning

Government smokes

Sp President Obama signed the SCHIP bill yesterday, and the government program has a very special funding source:

The Congressional Budget Office says the bill will enable states to cover more than four million uninsured children by 2013, while continuing coverage for seven million youngsters. The bill will increase tobacco taxes to offset the increase in spending, estimated at more than $32 billion over four and a half years.

It's now your patriotic duty to smoke like a chimney. It's for the kids! And if the feds are smart, they'll start marketing their own line of Patriotic Old Glory Presidential cigarettes:
  • cherry-scented Washingtons
  • Lincolns: 100s and 120s
  • Nixons: short and crooked
  • Obamas: with a premium dark wrapper
And how about a line of Clinton cigars?

Practically giving it away

Mathematica Home Edition is now available for only $295.00, and it's not some crippled toy version - it's the whole shebang. See http://reference.wolfram.com for the complete language documentation and see http://blog.wolfram.com for neat things you can do with it.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Poets on the Psalms

Via dylan, an exchange of letters by two American poets, Peter O'Leary and Alicia Ostriker, bewildered by the Psalms even as they're drawn to them. I'm grateful for their mention of John Milton's psalm translations and paraphrases, collected here via google: