First, thanks for all the advice on hosting sites yesterday. I still haven’t decided, but your recommendations have helped (and are helping) me refine wants and needs for the new site. Right now it’s between HostGator and Hawk Host (recommended by Tom Knapp and Brad R, respectively) and HostWinds (not recommended by anybody but coming up to the top on a lot of my criteria).<\/p>\n
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Attended an event yesterday at which the Republocrats and the Democans had competing back-to-back booths. Nice high wall between them to avoid riots among competing factions of statists, but still amusing placement.<\/p>\n
It was obvious that the poor volunteers were being barraged with protests against their presidential candidates. At the first anti-Hillary remark, the chief Dem volunteer launched into an obviously rehearsed spiel about how desperately — desperately! — important the downticket races were: “I understand you not wanting to v*te for Clinton, but look, we have these vital<\/em> county commissioner races, and boy are they ever tight. You should still v*te, you know. You wouldn’t want the Rs to win, would you?”<\/p>\n The volunteers on the R side of the barrier took a different tack: “Okay,” said the first one, “we don’t like Trump very much, either. But the thing is, with Hillary, you already know<\/em> what you’re getting. With Trump, at least there’s hope.” She clasped her hands as if in desperate prayer, “And we have<\/em> to have hope, don’t we?”<\/p>\n “Don’t forget those Supreme Court justices,” a second volunteer reminded.<\/p>\n But the R’s didn’t have any “Hillary for Jail” bumper stickers. Alas. So I walked out into the blazing sunshine and let politics burn off my skin.<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n Finally, a ray of sanity — and actual thinking<\/em> — from somewhere in academia. The University of Chicago, in the voice of its dean of students<\/a>, informs incoming freshmen:<\/p>\n You will find that we expect members of our community to be engaged in rigorous debate, discussion and even disagreement. At times this may challenge you and even cause discomfort.<\/p>\n Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called “trigger warnings,” we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual “safe spaces” where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Glory hallelujah!<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n The documentary Of Dogs and Men<\/em> (originally known as Puppycide<\/em> when it crowdsourced funds a couple of years ago), is available online<\/a> and will soon be on DVD.<\/p>\n The trailer is intense. Though I donated to the fundraiser, I’m not sure I’ll be able to bear watching the completed film.<\/p>\n I’m glad to know it’s finally made it out, though.<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n And happy birthday to Linux. Linus Torvalds’ little hobby project turns 25<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n