12-19-15 Hodgepodge

Merry Christmas!

Every year, I take a week or so off from blogging around this time. This year, I feel more ready than usual, owing to the close proximity of our cross-country move to the holiday season. These two normally busy events put together are more than the sum of their parts, making for a nice, big blob of stress for the end of the year. (But give me extra points for keeping the blog going: Component failures forced me to replace each of my computers, on opposite ends of the move. My way of doing things is smooth as silk in daily practice, but it takes lots of initial tweaking up front.)

During such breaks, I do not post to the blog and only occasionally check email or the comment queue. I make no promises regarding the latter two, save to answer or moderate some time after I resume blogging. I expect to be back here on December 30.

I'll see you then.

Weekend Reading

"Most of the power others seem to have over us is just the power we mistakenly give them." -- Michael Hurd, in "Beware the Smart Slacker" at The Delaware Wave

"It's truly unfortunate when government mandates turn technology from an aid into a hindrance to the practice of good medicine." -- Paul Hsieh, in "Are Mandatory Electronic Medical Records Causing Doctor Burnout?" at Forbes

"Sometimes we're presented with dilemmas where each choice involves a potential loss." -- Michael Hurd, in "'Homewrecker': The Psychology of Affairs" at The Delaware Coast Press

"The very act of borrowing pushes up the interest rate slightly (in a normal world)." -- Keith Weiner, in "Falling Interest Causes Falling Profits" at SNB & CHF

"My objection to such dystopian stories is one I share with Ayn Rand: Dictatorships and totalitarian regimes cannot sustain themselves if they destroy or regulate the freedom to think, speak, and act." -- Edward Cline, in "Islam in Contemporary Fiction" at Family Security Matters

Food Fight

Adult males and females pretending to be college students are passing off a series of jokes as radical demands.

The cafeteria there wasn't serving enough vegan and vegetarian options and had failed to make fried chicken a permanent feature on the Sunday night menu, the school newspaper reported.

Students of every imaginable ethnicity, including a few from overseas, bellyached about some imperfection or omission regarding their favored option, oblivious (or pretending to be) to numerous things, including: the blatant contradictions among their demands, the difficulties inherent in running a cafeteria, and the fact that they could choose not to eat the offending dishes or -- gasp -- avail themselves of other dining (or educational) opportunities.

A famous movie scene featuring John Belushi comes to mind as an example of more honest, mature, and constructive behavior.

-- CAV