Falconcrest Manor

Today's Times had a characteristically even-handed if boring analysis of Sunday's Titty Holocaust. But what is up with everyone making all this fun of the NYT? It reminds me of my old college days, although the 'Times is a whole lot better than Gawker, the e-zine for hometrosexuals.

Something gross: I was walking to work today and this pigeon's sitting in the middle of the sidewalk and as I approach it, it tries to sort of shuffle out of the way. Apparently it's been hit by a car or something because it doesn't seem like it can fly and it's spraying blood all over the snow as it tries to heave itself out of my way. Naturally I tried to pucker up all my mucous membranes; I don't think any got in my mouth.

[Now it's Wednesday.]

Mer pointed out that the bird I saw yesterday was very likely the same bird she saw that had chosen the garbage alcove near our building as a good place to kick the bucket. She said some if its shoulder meat was exposed. It'd had to have gone all the way around the corner to get there. Gross.

Eric Raymond: Smart, but a bit teched in the head. His solution to the problem of terrorism:

I agree with you in conceding that the state is at this time the only way we have to answer the terrorist threat. The world in which Osama bin Laden would be killed by troops hired by a consortium of crime- and disaster-insurance companies rather than a government does not yet exist.

The reasoning here, I guess, is that profit is a purer or at least more consistent motive than statecraft or whatever it is that motivates people to go into government. But if you watch the news at all, you have to wonder if maybe the desire for profit makes people treat other people poorly sometimes. So if this consortium is accountable to a separate body, then this body is probably a government. And if this consortium is, by its charter, accountable to a group of citizens, then it is itself more or less a government. Right?

[Now it's Thursday]

Okay, time to publish this fucker. Links:

• Farnon's (I think) latest ouvre
• IBFT, linked for reference purposes
• Tom pointed me to this. Initially I was grumpy about it, but now I like it.

OpenRPG is currently a big mess of segfaults and damaged stack. Flaunting the rules of software development (e.g., compile and test often) is fun while you're doing it, but sad after you stop doing it.