mao drag

a-mer-i-ca

Pretty interesting article about the ol' USA:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-more-you-know-a-place-the-harder-it-is-to-judge/2007/05/27/1180205073484.html


Some particularly wise person once said that if you are going to write about America, you should do so after a short stay, maybe a few weeks, before you are overwhelmed by its diversity and the sheer size of the place, with all its contradictions, excesses and complexities.

I feel like I may have said something like that about China, or at least read it somewhere and didn't share it. I read that passage out to Adam and he said, "Well isn't it true?"

"I have no idea," I said. "It's always just been there for me. I might even call it 'normal'."

iGasm

how fast do you go?

the other one

blog by association

The other one wanted me to put this up on my blog because, "Nobody will see it" on his blog. Well maybe he should start trying to blog. I am happy that someone thinks people read my blog - a fine selection of family, occassional friends and shocked onlookers. Although I don't think I've written anything exceedingly 'shocking' recently.

Anyway here's the stuff:


Article here.

I can't be bothered to proof read this entry.

Amen

We have long been in the habit of seeing in the Constitution whatever it is we want to see. Because liberals want a society that is neat and orderly, they tell themselves that this is what the Constitution “wants” as well. This is a little like a nineteenth-century country vicar arguing that the Bible stands for moderation, reform, and other such Victorian virtues when in fact, as anyone who actually reads the text can see, it is filled with murder, mayhem, and the arbitrary vengeance of a savage god. By the same token, the increasingly sophisticated scholarship surrounding the Second Amendment has led to renewed respect for the constitutional text as it is rather than as we would like it to be. The Constitution, it turns out, is not neat and orderly but messy and unruly. It is not modern but pre-modern. It is not the product of a time very much like our own but reflects the unresolved contradictions of a time very different from our own.

page of lies

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/lies

reading the palm

I was at a dinner last night and got to talking to a friend I haven't seen in 4 months. He's been travelling and living in monasteries around Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia. Anyway, he's a bit of a spiritual chap and was reading people's palms.

Apparantly I have no career line. I find this particularly disturbing as I'm in the process of looking for a career. Of course, I don't actually believe in palm reading, but you know, not such a good thing to hear. Also, my life line is shorter than most.

He went on to tell me that the palm changes every six months, but still...