Censored books meme, dammit

Okay, here's the list of the top 110 censored books. I've bolded the ones I've read, and underlined the ones I specifically want to read but haven't yet.

( Read more... )

Hey, cool! I’ve read 51 of them! Not bad, huh? And this gives me a useful reading list, to boot!

Censored books meme, dammit

Okay, here's the list of the top 110 censored books. I've bolded the ones I've read, and underlined the ones I specifically want to read but haven't yet.

( Read more... )

Hey, cool! I’ve read 51 of them! Not bad, huh? And this gives me a useful reading list, to boot!

Dean, the DNC, and Me

I'm glad Howard Dean won the DNC chairmanship. Time and again during the Presidential campaign, and afterwards, he surprised me by being more honest than I expected a politician to be.

Did I already write about Donnie Fowler, one of his competitors for the DNC chair? Maybe not. On his site he had a forum requesting positive ideas for the Democratic party. I posted some. There were some good responses. Other people posted ideas. Then a Republican troll came and in and destroyed everything. Within a week the forum had degenerated into crazy charges, pathetic defenses, and endless nattering about abortion.

And despite the fact that the troll was a self-admitted Republican and had nuked the board, Donnie and whatever flunky he had running the board never did a damned thing about it. Even though I and others wrote to them several times about it. If he wasn't willing to stand up to a single GOP troll, how was he going to help the party?

Jerk.

Anyway, I got an email from Howard Dean - a mass emailing, of course - asking me to sign a petition to the DNC. So I did, and added some comments in the comments field:

Please provide secure, troll-free online forums where Democracts can discuss, organize, share effective techniques for opposing the Republicans and the media, and plan.

Give us a pipeline to suggest ideas to the DNC.

And please give those of us who are too poor to contribute money (thanks to the Bush economy) SOME way to help restore democracy to America.

After that they asked for the email addresses of some friends who might sign the petition.

I paused. I DON'T want to give out the addresses of friends - that crosses a line that I'm not comfortable with. At the same time, I was pretty sure that some of them would be interested. But ONLY if this wasn't just signing them up to be solicited for money!

While I was thinking about it, an email came in from the DNC. It thanked me for signing the petition, and asked me to consider joining, or asking my friends to join, in certain capacities. Unfortunately two out of three of them were basically fund-raising; give money, or try to get my friends to give money.

The hell with that! The email used some of the language that the DNC has used before - "e-captains", for example - and it didn't pretend to be from Howard Dean. So I'm hoping that it was written by some old employees of the DNC.

I don't want to believe that Howard Dean is going to spend the next four-plus years just sending me email asking me for money. I don't HAVE any money. How about giving me some other ways to help, instead?

Dean, the DNC, and Me

I'm glad Howard Dean won the DNC chairmanship. Time and again during the Presidential campaign, and afterwards, he surprised me by being more honest than I expected a politician to be.

Did I already write about Donnie Fowler, one of his competitors for the DNC chair? Maybe not. On his site he had a forum requesting positive ideas for the Democratic party. I posted some. There were some good responses. Other people posted ideas. Then a Republican troll came and in and destroyed everything. Within a week the forum had degenerated into crazy charges, pathetic defenses, and endless nattering about abortion.

And despite the fact that the troll was a self-admitted Republican and had nuked the board, Donnie and whatever flunky he had running the board never did a damned thing about it. Even though I and others wrote to them several times about it. If he wasn't willing to stand up to a single GOP troll, how was he going to help the party?

Jerk.

Anyway, I got an email from Howard Dean - a mass emailing, of course - asking me to sign a petition to the DNC. So I did, and added some comments in the comments field:

Please provide secure, troll-free online forums where Democracts can discuss, organize, share effective techniques for opposing the Republicans and the media, and plan.

Give us a pipeline to suggest ideas to the DNC.

And please give those of us who are too poor to contribute money (thanks to the Bush economy) SOME way to help restore democracy to America.

After that they asked for the email addresses of some friends who might sign the petition.

I paused. I DON'T want to give out the addresses of friends - that crosses a line that I'm not comfortable with. At the same time, I was pretty sure that some of them would be interested. But ONLY if this wasn't just signing them up to be solicited for money!

While I was thinking about it, an email came in from the DNC. It thanked me for signing the petition, and asked me to consider joining, or asking my friends to join, in certain capacities. Unfortunately two out of three of them were basically fund-raising; give money, or try to get my friends to give money.

The hell with that! The email used some of the language that the DNC has used before - "e-captains", for example - and it didn't pretend to be from Howard Dean. So I'm hoping that it was written by some old employees of the DNC.

I don't want to believe that Howard Dean is going to spend the next four-plus years just sending me email asking me for money. I don't HAVE any money. How about giving me some other ways to help, instead?

School on fire

Something funny: this morning Teri took Sebastian to his school. When they got there, there was a fire engine in front; apparently a fire alarm had gone off, but there was no fire.

Nonetheless Sebastian instantly burst into tears, convinced that his school was burning down. Apparently he was inconsolable until Teri took him into the classroom and showed him that his friends were all right.

School on fire

Something funny: this morning Teri took Sebastian to his school. When they got there, there was a fire engine in front; apparently a fire alarm had gone off, but there was no fire.

Nonetheless Sebastian instantly burst into tears, convinced that his school was burning down. Apparently he was inconsolable until Teri took him into the classroom and showed him that his friends were all right.

Kill A Spammer - PLEASE!!!

The spammers have been relentlessly attacking the RuneQuest Wiki on my site. Non-stop. Day after day. Sometimes they deleted the legitimate entries, sometimes they just spewed their crap above or below the real entry.

Some of them wrote "if this bothers you just delete" and then instantly re-posted their shit when I deleted it. Others posted "Im Sorry" above their drug-and-sex site links for no sane reason. One threatened to delete my whole site.

So screw it. I backed everything up a while ago, and I've killed the wiki. I'll find a decent, secure alternative and use that from now on. It'll be up on the site ASAP.

Kill A Spammer - PLEASE!!!

The spammers have been relentlessly attacking the RuneQuest Wiki on my site. Non-stop. Day after day. Sometimes they deleted the legitimate entries, sometimes they just spewed their crap above or below the real entry.

Some of them wrote "if this bothers you just delete" and then instantly re-posted their shit when I deleted it. Others posted "Im Sorry" above their drug-and-sex site links for no sane reason. One threatened to delete my whole site.

So screw it. I backed everything up a while ago, and I've killed the wiki. I'll find a decent, secure alternative and use that from now on. It'll be up on the site ASAP.