Of the aims which are at the same time duties

In an effort to improve my output, I've embraced a radical philosophy: naps are vital to our survival. "You adjust your life's schedule because the internet told you to?" Yes.

Emphatically.

Technological or chemical, the future is built for experimentation. But society continues to enforce chemical stasis with banal conversation. Imagine dinner parties enhanced with tactical readouts of mother-in-law number four's capacity to deal deadly destruction, with discretion. Delightful? Doubtful.

Besides, being an American, I take comfort in the knowledge that somewhere, at this very moment, the next generation is training to protect me from whatever perils my archaic mind will be unable to face.

Eight year olds with machine guns, blowing shit up.

Who loves ya?

Edited 6/27/2008 8:17 A.M. CST

Wherein I vastly oversimplify complex economic debates, much to your consternation

Here's a quite useful paper explaining a lot of current thought on international capital. Joy! Groan and click away if you can, but I've got a hook for you: this post is about rich people.

Intrigued? You bet your ass you are! Apparently arguments for free trade are dying because "the poor have not been borrowing from the rich to finance their investment and industrialization, instead the rich have on net been borrowing from the poor to finance their own consumption".

Wow. Who could've seen that one coming?

Fact: Rich people are scared of poor people.

Because the U.S. "offers a form of protection for capital against unanticipated political disturbances", even as American companies move abroad for cheaper labor, the people who actually make money prefer to invest in America. So, even though companies are moving abroad, America still wins! Woo! Just...not all of America...in my cynical phantasma, pretty much everyone who is not an investment banker will likely be reduced to the same Malthusian equilibrium currently enjoyed by the oh-so-cheap labor forces our companies so prize.

Now, breaking the equilibrium is relatively easy to do, but I'm not sure anyone else is up for televised fire-circle death match rituals for all twenty-year olds. An equally implausible solution has been proposed by the authors of the said paper: "governments should lower taxes and spend more". How deficit spending fixes global inequity is beyond me. I have enough trouble counting up to the $50 needed to fill my gas tank without further inflation. Better solutions: global unions (all the fun of riots, now with more capitalism!) and government investment in technical education.

Tricky Tricky Wording

Attention Everyone:

Read THIS article on CNN and notice the exorbitant amount of "quotation-marks," if you imagine them as "air-quotes" I "believe" it completely changes the intended "meaning" of the article, or "perhaps" it is the "intended" meaning.
"Who" knows?

Absconding With Dignity

The Anglican Church seems to have hit a queer fork in the road; two priests in the Anglican church were married -in a same sex marriage, mind you- using the traditional liturgy, which, in turn, has created a rift with the more conservative mind-set within the church. Apparently, the Archbishop had stated, no more than three years ago, that the sexual teaching provided by the church would maintain the more traditional values of the bygone eras, and that those who act in opposition to these teachings would be "disciplined." (Sounds sexy.) And, since these sexual trespassers were not roundly spanked, quite a few of these vicars have their knickers stuffed far up their cracks with rage.
What bothers me (just one of the many things, I suppose) is this statement:
Anglicans in Africa and Asia are infuriated enough with the liberal North American churches, where openly homosexual clergy and church blessings for same-sex couples are now common. But the news two male priests used a traditional wedding liturgy, involving exchange of rings and vows, in a Church of England church could push them to the edge.
I'm not sure that those in Africa and Asia (two large geographical areas that are having a significant amount of civil unrest) should be overly concerned with two priests getting hitched. Seems to this uneducated jackass that they would have bigger fish to fry. (Wait, is it just the Catholics that like fish?) Eh, let these priests engage in furious dry-humping with all the ceremony they want and worry about something that actually matters.
Now, why is this bad for Archbishop Rowan Williams? Seems to the public that this little non-secular sexual indiscretion could split the Anglican Church like two ass cheeks, letting the world see the blown-out rectum that is the tricky grey-area of religious sexual teachings.
Wait a minute, who doesn't want to see that?