Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

From an article in The Christian Science Monitor by Kris Axtman about terrorist weapons found in Texas:

The fact is, the number of domestic terrorist acts in the past five years far outweighs the number of international acts, says Mark Pitcavage of the fact-finding department at the Anti-Defamation League. "We do have home-grown hate in the United States, people who are just as ill-disposed to the American government as any international terrorist group," he says.

(I got the link from misia, who got it from trinker, who got it from elynne.)

Bonus quote, about conservatives' reactions to this story, from elynne: "Wow. When the righties and lefties are making the same complaints against the current govnt., you know there's something seriously amiss."

( And a more inflammatory quote from the article... )

The meaning of life is on eBay.

I mean for sale on eBay. Six days left, currently $20.50.

Either that fibromyalgia related hyperacute hearing thing is being bad today, or they're only permitting extra-loud vehicles on Lombard St. today and somebody broke into my house last night just to turn up the secret volume control on the fluorescent light in the kitchen that buzzes. The cars are bad enough, but when a bus starts moving after having stopped for the trtaffic light, it feels like something that tickles and hurts at the same time is being pushed through my head from one side to the other. Oh ouch -- the next-door neighbour's front door just opened. That's not a big sound; it's not supposed to make me wince.

It's the low frequencies that hurt the most today. Police sirens don't hurt until they're pretty close, but a badly tuned automobile exhaust hurts from some distance. At least the evening too-loud-car-stereos session is a few hours away yet.

I'm pretty sure it's the fibromyalgia, not a Very Sneaky But Noisy Conspiracy. I had what would've been a tiring weekend if I'd started it in good shape, but I was feeling tired and unwell from the start, so getting through it was that much more of a push. Now my body is complaining pretty loudly. And I really need to go back to Bowie today (hours ago, actually) to deal with car stuff. I'm not certain it's going to happen.

Last night my brother remarked, "I wish it would just snow already," which seemed a bit odd with the temperature around 286 K (56 F, 13 C), but the air did smell "like snow" despite the warmth. (It occurs to me that "smells like snow" mostly means "smells like impending/approaching snow" more than it smells like snowfall. Sometimes it still smells like that while the snow is falling, and sometimes it doesn't. Someday I'll figure out exactly what it is we're smelling when we use that phrase.)

Well today, I find myself thinking how nice it would be to have a blanket of snow deadening the sounds of city traffic and scaring some percentage of the drivers off the roads for an afternoon. But with my luck I'd be hearing folks spinning their tires at the stoplight ...

But even that might be better than the "udBOOMrattle" of trucks hitting the bump on Fulton Ave. just past the intersection, after catching the light green while going a little more than the speed limit. Depending on the style of truck and what it's carrying, that can sometimes sound rather convincingly like a gunshot or a bomb.

There's a voice in my head telling me that since I have things that need doing, I should "be responsible" and force myself to get out and do those things no matter how badly I'm feeling. But I'm not really sure I should be behind the wheel of a motor vehicle right now. I already noticed how my driving was different last night, and I didn't feel this bad then. Not sure what to do about that voice.

Okay, now my brain hurts as much as the rest of me:

"[...] the easy and obvious comparative analysis would be between the tinwhistle and the recorder and all our competitors would stop there. But not us. A more interesting comparison would be between the tinwhistle and the recorder and the Norelco Triple Rotary Head Electric Shaver [...]"