29 Jun 2010
Insurance Industry Already Finding Ways To Game New System

Betcha they don't try to weasel out of the part that makes us all buy insurance from them at inflated rates...

The insurance industry's attempt to weasel out of one of the few provisions of the new health care reform law that took effect immediately is a harbinger of what's to come.

(link) [Huffington Post]

21:09 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

The Public (Domain) Be Damned

Insanity.

Warning: this one is depressing if you believe in the public domain. You may recall that last year, a district court made a very important ruling on what appeared to be a minor part of copyright law. The "Golan" case asked a simple question: once something is officially in the public domain, can Congress pull it out and put it back under copyright? The situation came about because of (yet another) trade agreement that pulled certain foreign works out of the public domain. A district court had initially said that this move did not violate the law, but the appeals court sent it back, saying that the lower court had not analyzed the First Amendment issue, and whether this was a case where the inherent conflict between the First Amendment and copyright law went too far to the side of copyright by violating the "traditional contours of copyright law." Getting a second crack at this, the district court got it right -- and was the first court to point out that massively expanded copyright law can, in fact, violate the First Amendment.

(link) [TechDirt]

21:04 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

The Anosognosic’s Dilemma

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who don't know and those who don't know they don't know ...

There are a zillion things I don’t know. And I know that I don’t know them. But what about the unknown unknowns? Are they like a scotoma, a blind spot in our field of vision that we are unaware of? I kept wondering if Rumsfeld’s real problem was with the unknown unknowns; or was it instead some variant of self-deception, thinking that you know something that you don’t know. A problem of hubris, not epistemology.

(link) [New York Times: Opinionator]

21:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

26 Jun 2010
On the Home Front

One thing a news strike does: it cuts down on material to comment on in blog posts! But it also seems to result in a calmer overall disposition, and that's a Good Thing™.

Trying to keep up with the lawn and general garden work this year has been a real chore - we've had a tremendous amount of rainfall, and the heat and humidity make it feel more like late July than late June. The garden's been too soggy to work in much, and weeds have gone rife where some of our planned plantings have simply drowned in the muck. The tomatoes, peppers, cukes and pumpkins seem OK, but most everything else has been a wash - literally. I did manage to get the woodpile on the west side of the barn cleaned up (and partially burned) today. That task has been planned for, oh, six years, at least!. And I got a chunk of mucking done in the big stall Friday evening. Lorraine got the yard mowed yesterday, and I got the ditch and the ve this morning, but other than that, it's been too hot to work outside for long.

I do have some opinion pieces I saw in the Times to opine on, and a few other tidbits that I've gleaned from blogs and other non-news sources, but that's about it. Maybe I'll start working my way back through my "to be posted" pile again...

We'll see.

22:37 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

23 Jun 2010
Stoicism Is Just So Yesterday

I have an old Harvard Classics edition of Meditations on my bedside table - it's been there for nearly 30 years. And will continue to be there, gods willing, another 30.

Ours is not a philosophical age, much less an age of Stoicism. As Frank McLynn explains in his new biography of Marcus Aurelius, the last of Rome's "five good emperors," commander of Rome's prolonged campaigns against the invasions of barbarian German tribes, and the last important Stoic philosopher of ancient days, our philosophers (academics) no longer profess to help the average person answer life's great metaphysical questions. Contemporary philosophers might contemplate such abstruse problems as whether mental properties can be said to emerge from the physical processes of the universe; what the necessary and sufficient conditions are for self-interest; where the mind stops and the rest of the world begins-not, perhaps, the pressing existential questions presented by the normal course of a human life.

(link) [In Character]

via MyAppleMenu:Reader

06:35 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

21 Jun 2010
A Faining for Midsummer, 2010

The HarrowWe had our Midsummer celebration yesterday, on Midsummer's Eve. We had fourteen in attendance, and a feast of (pasture raised) pork chops, pasta salads, melons, cakes and pies. A great time was had by all. But this was a very different Asatru ritual from those I have conducted in the past, and I would very much like to get some feedback from my heathen (and non-heathen, for that matter) readers. By all accounts it turned out extremely well.

We called it a faining as opposed to a blot, as the latter literally means "blood", and in eldritch times implied an animal sacrifice, with the sacrificial animal being the main course at the feast. In modern times blot has come to mean a ritual similar to a sumbel, where participants share a horn of mead, ale or beer, offering it as the sacrifice in lieu of blood. This formula came to prominence in the 1980's, and was really popularized by Edred Thorsson in his A Book of Troth. Thorsson called his ritual structure a blot, and it's been the basis for nearly every Asatru ritual I've attended over the last 22 years.

There was no alcohol involved yesterday. None at all. I've attended rituals where a separate horn with cider was passed for children and recovering alcoholics, but this was the first I've been to (much less written and presided over) that involved no booze whatsoever. So "faining" seemed a more appropriate name for this ritual, as while gifts were clearly exchanged, there was no "sacrifice", animal or alcoholic.

There was no hammer warding, either. That was another feature of modern ritual that came originally from the old AFA and was popularized by Thorsson. Now, Ravenswood, the kindred I co-founded in 1992, opens every ritual to this day with a hammer warding. But the ve (holy space, containing the harrow, or alter) used by Ravenswood has never been enclosed, as was traditional in eldritch times. The ve here at our farm is enclosed, and it has been warded with the Hammer many times. So there was no need to use a hammer warding to establish ritual space. But there was still a need to set the tone for the folk, and "get things rolling" so to speak. I settled on using my Worship is Remembrance poem.

And since we had both children and recovering alcoholics present, water from our deep well was used - representing the Well of Wyrd in the horn, and the Dew that Nourishes Yggdrasil at the offering. Rather than a boast or toast, the participants shared a memory of [Mid]summer past. Lorraine had helped me in putting together a list of summer memories, and she read them before the horn was passed to set the mood. This sort of took the place of the reading from the lore that has become a fixture of Ravenswood rituals.

She ended up passing the horn to each of the folk as well. It is very traditional to have a woman handle the horn in sumbel (even though Ravenswood doesn't follow that tradition). We had thought about this, but discarded the idea as there was no alcohol involved. It just sort of happened, and we went with the flow.

We also put considerable energy into the bulletin - a habit of Ravenswood's that I started and continued here. This was the first one, however, that I ever printed in color, and on good paper. The illustration turned out beautifully, and really set the tone for honoring the wights of the land. Thor gets thanked profusely by Lorraine and I for his good work in warding our stead, but I sometimes think we overlook the lesser wights, whose contribution to the well being of the farm is immeasurable.

I kept with that spirit in closing, where I used a poem I'd written several years ago to the harrow. That worked really well, too, partly, I think, because of the rhyme and rhythm of the poetry itself.

A Faining for Midsummer is up as a pdf - download it, use it, adapt it, share it - but most importantly, let me know what you think!

21:01 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link

17 Jun 2010
Cleaning Up

Took advantage of a break in the rain to snag a couple of vacation days and get some work done around here. Shoveled a lot of shit today - got one stall clean and another about halfway done. The folks who sold us Bill the Llama are coming over tomorrow morning at 9 to give us a hand (and hopefully some tips) shearing him.

Looking back over the blog, I've not mentioned that we're having an open faining on Midsummer's Eve. Kinda of payback to the Powers (especially Thor) and the wights for their assistance in our recent refinancing. If you're in the area and want to drop by, drop me a line first and I'll get you directions.

Neither of us has had any news today - it feels good. I think we're addicted, and "news junkie" may be a more literal term than most folks realize.

20:02 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

15 Jun 2010
News Strike, Round 2

You may recall our news strike from last year - it's come to it again. I guess we just need a respite from the doom and gloom that seems to constantly bombard us, from the 'Net, from radio, from TV, from everywhere. So, taking up once again the motto "no news is good news" we're off the dole for at least a month.

I feel better already.

19:16 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

13 Jun 2010
GOPer Angle Spoke Out Against Fluoride In Water Supply

Paging Dr. Strangelove...

Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle earlier in her career spoke out strongly against fluoride, the substance known alternately for improving dental health and as a Communist plot to undermine Western democracy.

(link) [Talking Points Memo]

via Dispatches from the Culture Wars

08:55 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

10 Jun 2010
Do the feds have a case against Apple?

WTF? Who does Apple think it is? Microsoft? Has Steve Jobs started channeling his inner Bill Gates?

News analysis Apple's tweaking of the rules for which kind of ad networks can operate on its iPhone has prompted scrutiny from antitrust authorities, according to reports.

(link) [CNET News]

21:09 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

09 Jun 2010
Amish Farming Draws Rare Government Scrutiny

I'm sorry, I don't believe that manure from these farms is a primary cause of pollution in the Chesapeake. Not unless they're doing things a lot differently than the Old Order Amish I know here in Indiana. Here, the dairies leave the cattle on pasture all day, and they don't go thru the fields and shovel the shit into piles, nor do they let it pile up in barns - they spread it over their pastures. It seems as though the government is trying to make these farms more like feedlots, with management plans and manure lagoons. Those are real polluters - just ask anybody living downwind from a feedlot.

One tidbit of real information from the article said that E. coli had been found in wells and streams in Lancaster County, with the implication that this is necessarily the result of Amish cow piles. But the E. coli problem in cow manure is demonstrably the result of feedlot practices - cattle on pasture don't have any of the harmful strains in their rumens and certainly don't dump it. And the Amish would never stuff their cattle with grain like that - they're too cheap!

The Amish are by no means perfect farmers nor are they necessarily environmentally friendly. But in this case, I'll reserve judgment until I have more information on exactly which Amish practices are causing the problem. That's assuming there is a problem. If there is a problem, I seriously doubt that it's caused by anything resembling natural farming methods.

[Amish farmers] like Mr. Stoltzfus are facing growing scrutiny for agricultural practices that the federal government sees as environmentally destructive. Their cows generate heaps of manure that easily washes into streams and flows onward into the Chesapeake Bay.

(link) [New York Times]

18:32 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Closing the Digital Frontier

Sad, and altogether too true. Let's hope this is a temporary trend. AOL tried this "walled garden" approach in the mid to late 90's, and we know how that turned out. We'll see.

The era of the Web browser’s dominance is coming to a close. And the Internet’s founding ideology—that information wants to be free, and that attempts to constrain it are not only hopeless but immoral— suddenly seems naive and stale in the new age of apps, smart phones, and pricing plans. What will this mean for the future of the media—and of the Web itself?

(link) [The Atlantic]

07:05 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

08 Jun 2010
Apple developers, you're living on the edge

I would rephrase this to say "Apple Mobile Developers", but other than that it's pretty accurate. I never dreamed when I very publicly endorsed Apple as "for developers" in 2002 that things would go this route. I'm not ready to pull that endorsement - yet. Mac developers (such as me) can still use our choice of tools, and don't have to sign any obnoxious developer agreements if we don't want to. If Apple tries that with the Mac line, well, I'd be gone in a Flash. Pun intended.

Jobs' message to developers this week might have sounded simple on stage: three easy rules to follow, 95 percent approval rate, and cash money just rolling into your pockets. Frankly, I can't believe any developer still believes any of those lines, and after the events of this week, everyone ought to be reading between them. You may think the App Store is a gold mine, but it sounds like one hell of a dangerous mine.

(link) [CNET]

22:41 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

07 Jun 2010
A Classical Education: Back to the Future

Latin didn't kill me - nor do I remember any of my classmates dying of it. In fact, a core focus on the humanities serves as the best possible basis of an education. To the authors list I would add music and art, but that's about it - and I would eliminate all "physical education", "industrial education" and other such pap. If kids want to play sports, more power to'em - after school and with their own funds. If factories and offices need trained workers (and they do) methinks they would find a classically educated person a much better trainee than one whose education consists of classes in health, psych, PE and basket weaving ...

Classical High School (in Providence, RI) is the best and most demanding educational institution I have ever been associated with. The name tells the story. When I attended, offerings and requirements included four years of Latin, three years of French, two years of German, physics, chemistry, biology, algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry, English, history, civics, in addition to extra-curricular activities...

(link) [New York Times: Opinionator]

21:34 /Politics | 3 comments | permanent link

06 Jun 2010
Almost Caught Up

Final touches are being put on the garden, the yard's mowed, even got part of a stall mucked. We're almost caught up.

22:40 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link