Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

It's been a while since I've done one of these. Since the last one, I've had two or three browser crashes, a machine failure, and a power outage or two that have zapped many of the windows I had open waiting for me to get around to copying their URLs and writing descriptions. Here's what I had on my screen today, most of which has been there long enough for me to forget who pointed it out to me.

• First, to get the too-cute out of the way, this photo is just precious.
• And to seque into something useful, here's a web tool: The Victorian Sex-Cry Generator.
• I may have linked to this before, but ... Pretty! Math sculptures.". Bathsheba Grossman: "I'm an artist exploring the region between art and mathematics, and this is my gallery and storefront."
• Primitive Archer magazine takes a look at the SCA: "Combat archery is totally unlike target or field archery. It is even unlike hunting, unless you are in the habit of shooting at fast moving two hundred pound gorillas in armor with shields to block your arrows, and swords to pound you to the ground if you miss."
• susiebeeca proposes a very different spin on an election drinking game.
• "Before you speak of information pirates" (by Adam Oram) starts with a bunch of stuff I didn't know (from Marcus Rediker's Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age) and goes on to ruminate on parallels other than the obvious between historical pirates and information pirates. (Thanks to src for the link.)
• This really ought to go in a special political link-sausage entry, but I keep not getting around to doing one of those. In case any of you haven't seen it already, "We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore", by Garrison Keillor, about how the Republican party has changed over the years. "Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships." [...] "The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience [...]" And, "Our beloved land has been fogged with fear -- fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich." [...] "The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of."
• Short, shameful confession[*]: I want one of these. (Water pistol that will make one or two people want to Brillo their brains.)
• A wedding album for a couple who must have not only been die-hard Star Wars fans, but had a lot of fans among their friends and relatives.
• And finally, back to susiebeeca again, a poster that ought to be in subway stations and doctors' offices and magazines.

[*] Why yes, I was a regular on that newsgroup once upon a time, but I only poke my nose in there occasionally nowadays.

"In our times, the meaning of conservatism is violence. It means violence against foreigners and violence against political dissidents. It means celebrating violence as the right and proper method of government policy. It means soundly rejecting the views of those who doubt the merit of violence as the omnipotent tool of domestic and international order." -- Jeffrey Tucker, 2004-08-21 (quoted by Micha Ghertner, 200-08-24)

Gig went well despite my feeling tired and weak. Crowd seemed small because they all sat so far away and so far apart from each other, but it was actually a decent crowd and we even sold a bunch of CDs. Started feeling crashy in the car on the way to my mother's house, but after sitting in the air conditioning for a while and rehydrating, I'm starting to feel human again.