l33tminion | Good Times, Good Links

This weekend was great. Saturday evening went to the Sunset Catina with DJ for some excellent food and drink. Sunday I went to Tropic Thunder with film club, which was good dumb fun.

A variety of things to comment on:

I've heard some people suggest John McCain secretly wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade. That's simply not the case; it can hardly be secret when it's on his website. Not worried though, as Obama continues a solid campaign while McCain continues to kick himself in the mouth repeatedly.
sabotabby presents a parable about US healthcare. Also interesting is this libertarian essay on how the government created this healthcare crisis by "solving" the last one. While I'm on a libertarian bent, here's another interesting one on fiat money and why it seems to work. Really interesting history.
Bill Nye has a new TV show. Bill Nye. The Science Guy. I'm excited.
Two blog posts on ampersands. Seriously.
A post on why the SAT is still useless crap that colleges should drop like a bad habit.
United Airlines bumps a family from a flight, ruining a $10k+ vacation (to visit a dying relative, among other things), lies about it, finally gives the family a refund, but refuses to write a letter allowing the family to claim the insurance on their trip.
An immigrant dies in US custody with undiagnosed spinal cancer, deported because papers were sent to the wrong address.
A recipe for Avocado Lime Pie with Coconut Cream.
A bunch of MIT students ended up in a legal controversy for revealing security vulnerabilities of the MBTA payment system. The MBTA management is showing their usual preference for security theater over real security.
A court ruled that violating copyleft licenses is copyright infringement, not contract violation. Good decision, to be applauded. Copyleft licenses are not contracts, the are unilateral statements by the copyright holder of which copyright rights they relinquish under which conditions.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

On McCain's political choices: well, I really don't care to be following this race anymore, because I feel that the only way McCain can win is if Obama is found in a hotel with a dead hooker. And to me, McCain wins a lot of points for doing what he does. He's arrogantly sincere about where his party is trying to go. So a vote for him is really something we'll be expecting to be getting.

On medical costs: While I guess that a public medical system would help, I highly doubt the US has the money to do that at this point in time. Let's get our priorities straight and cut back military spending before we redo the entire US healthcare system into socialized medicine. Further, I will point out that while fiat money, at first a tremendously bad idea, there's only so much wealth in the world. Gold, like oil, turnips, and even air comes in limited quantities. We've moved on to an information age where wealth is found in ideas as much as physical products. I think the "concept of money" is just as important and we really should only refine the monetary system, not bring it back to a gold/silver/copper backed currency.

Stuff Happens: Awesome show, will be a fine one.

SAT: well, yes, it's alwys been crap, and always will be. But so are the application processes to Harvard and Brown. What we need in the nation is a non-racially biased and selective process. Then again, what we have to ask is, "who is smart enough to go to the nation's top universities?" I think it really needs to focus on increasing the quality of education and retainment of students in underperforming schools first, then we can talk about offering better options of college application processes. People who are serious about going to school will find ways to get there, and certain economic backgrounds make it harder for them; we should be focusing on this problem, not just test scores.

Pie: mmmm pie

that is all

Good Times, Good Links

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