General

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14440 ª February 4 7:39 AM. Sounds like progress to me… The American Academy of Pediatrics released a report that children of same-sex parents do as well as opposite-sex parents, and despite some teasing, cope well. Seems that it’s more important for two people to be in a loving relationship than what their sex is. I think it’s a pretty big deal for a professional organization to produce this report. You? [MetaFilter]

One comment:

I’ve always thought children brought up in loveless(or sexless)environments were those you suffered, whatever the sexual inclination of the parents/guardians.

I just finished packing a

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I just finished packing a box of CDs and one of books. I also threw out a few bags of junk. I still haven’t tackled the closet of doom yet.

"I'm falling in love with

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“I’m falling in love with the bass guitar. I don’t know why yet, but I think it has to do with it’s simplicity and purity,” sayeth Jeremiah.

I agree, but that’s only one of the things I love about the bass. I’m an improvisatory player. I enjoy living on the boundary between the groove, as it was written originally, and the edges of what’s possible. What’s so wonderful about playing the bass in this mode is the effect it has on the other musicians. [Jake’s Radio ‘Blog]

I fell in love with the bass because of two people: Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke. They turned the bass into a solo instrument and were the stars of their bands: Weather Report & Return to Forever. I enjoyed the interplay between Clarke’s bass & Chick Corea’s keyboards and between Jaco’s bass, Wayne Shorter’s sax, and Joe Zawinul’s keyboards.

Unfortunately Jaco Pastorius died before his time, the victim of mental illness & alcoholism. I found out that the bar where he was killed isn’t too far from my new home.

Went to see Bagels and

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Went to see Bagels and Fraylox at Aromas, a local coffe shop.

I’m not a member of the coffe shop crowd, it sorta scares me actually. But the music was really good, I forgot the name of it exactly but it has a clarinet, accordian, bass guitar and a saxaphone. It was really neat, and in a while they’re playing again at a local library with Yiddish singing.

I view most religions as traditional things, like tribal things almost. I think of the holy scriptures as folklore and morals. I know it sounds bad to religious people, but it’s almost an even higher form of respect. I don’t think of the Bible, Torah or Koran as something false, I think of it as something that should be respected, even if it isn’t to be taken literally.

Oh, and I really dig Jewish music. I think I’m going to go see them when they play at the library, and get my friends to come with me. I’m falling in love with the bass guitar. I don’t know why yet, but I think it has to do with it’s simplicity and purity. Guitar is based on lots of tricks, which I’m never good at. Bass seems like more of an actual instrument. I still love guitar, of course, but I think bass fits me closer.

As Jake said: “I should have figured that Jeremiah plays bass.”

[Jeremiah’s Radio Weblog]

The music is called Klezmer. It’s from my parent’s generation, so of course I can’t stand it 🙂

I don’t play the bass. I used to play keyboards when I was Jeremiah’s age, but I fell in love with the bass after hearing Stanley Clarke & Jaco Pastorius. Those guys turned it into a solo instrument.

Long-running Scandal in the Libertarian

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Long-running Scandal in the Libertarian Party. A long-running scandal in the Libertarian Party is met with the typical response seen in other political parties. It’s not at all surprising that any group of people, much less a politically-oriented one, should find itself embroiled in some degree of scandal. The whole event tells us much about politics, power, and the LP itself. [kuro5hin.org]

I voted for Harry Browne in ’96

An interesting bit of history

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An interesting bit of history from Chaos Manor:

Subject: Plucking the Yew! Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible for the English soldiers to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore incapable of fighting in the future. The famous bow was made of the English Yew tree and the act of drawing the longbow was known as “plucking the yew” or “pluck you”. Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won the battle and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French and saying “We can still pluck yew. Pluck you”. Since “pluck yew” is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative ‘F’ and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger salute. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as “giving the bird”. And yew thought that yew knew everything.

The full story here.

I installed the latest nightly

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I installed the latest nightly build of Mozilla and it’s getting really good. It’s even faster than 0.9.7 & I really like how it uses a sheet for the password entry dialog.