Hey Ai! Got your letter. Took me a while to figure out how to open the Japanese envelope. :)

I had my first Balboa swing lesson tonight. I feel like a newb all over again. I'm reading Krugman's Pop Internationalism, on the myths and ignorance about international trade. It's good. Catchphrase: "A country is not like a corporation." Countries can't go bankrupt (in the close up shop sense), and corporations basically "export" everything. More later.

* Wired discovers Settlers of Catan, calls it a Monopoly killer, talks about German board games in general.
* Palestinian orchestra performs for Holocaust survivors. Outrage ensues.
* Mayotte votes to become fully French, abandon Islamic law.
* Waterboarding's failure. I'm sure we're all so shocked.
* New law on Afghan women passed. The patriarchy is dead, long live the patriarchy.
* Federal pension insurer switched to stocks before the crash.. Head was from Lehman, denied any additional risk. Fox, meet henhouse.
* ETA: I haven't been keeping up with the flap about Dawkins speaking at Oklahoma University. The legislature (of both parties) is still buzzing in outrage at his coming "to indoctrinate students in the theory of evolution."

* What if Atlas Shrugged were a trilogy?
* A thread started on pre-Flood Creationist Earth as an RPG setting. That led to this, which ascends to new levels of bizarre. Who knew the antediluvian Sun was hot pink?

* Scalzi on Modern YA SF
* http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1714965.html
* Speaking of mellow anime, we seem to have found something with less plot or action than even Aria: Bartender. And I thought Aria was bad enough as "Maria-sama without the dramatic tension". Actually Bartender seems a bit like a cross of Master Keaton and Aria: the odd ubercareerist of one, the lack of... anything... of Aria. Except Aria had stunning visuals, cute girls, and the puzzle of "what the hell is that thing?", and the hints of science fiction (it's a flooded Mars, with what *has* to be a genetically engineered supercat.)

"Hey Dawkins, shut up!"

Expelled! showings being cancelled?

The Shrill One talks about the incident, and the movie. (Long web page, but most of that is comments.) Summary: the movie and its makers lie a lot. Disingenuous presentation of the interviewees. Probably lies about being magnanimous toward Dawkins, rather than not being able to see his name. Having purchased the Expelled domain name back when they were telling interviewees like Myers and Dawkins that the movie would be called Crossroad.

Cosmic Variance discusses, and also talks about the whole "framing" debate.

What Matt and Chris (seemingly) fail to understand is that PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins are not trying to be successful politicians, persuading the largest number of people to come over to their side. They have no interest in being politicians. They are critics, and their goal is to say correct things about the world and argue against incorrect statements. Of course, they would certainly like to see evolution rather than creationism taught in schools, and ultimately they would be very happy if all of humanity were persuaded of the correctness of their views. But their books and blogs about science and religion are not strategic documents designed to bring about some desired outcome; they are attempts to say true things about issues they care about. Telling them “Shut up! You’ll offend the sensibilities of people we are trying to persuade!” is like talking to a brick wall, or at least in an alien language. You will have to frame things much better than that.

Heh, as someone notes, Dawkins 'shrilly' says "So all that stuff about allowing me to attend because I have handled myself fairly honourably is almost certainly dishonourable spinning." which last two words seem a rather polite euphemism for lying.

Also priceless is a description of Ben Stein burying his face in his hands at being told about Dachau.