That'll stop them!

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(Shamelessly snagging this post from Bob Harris at This Modern World, as nothing more needs to be said.)

Our Attorney General wants to make terrorist attacks against military bases or nuclear plants a capital offense.

Obviously. Nothing deters a suicide bomber quite like the death penalty.

The full article is even scarier, though. Ashcroft is calling for a widening of the Patriot Act.

The Purity Test

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Dyanna and I got talking online tonight, and over the course of the conversation, the topic of the infamous Purity Tests came up.

I don’t really know where the Purity Tests got started, but I first found them not long after I first got online, sometime in 1991. The test itself (which now exists in various versions, though my personal favorites are the ‘original’ versions that I found all those years ago) is a series of yes or no questions designed to determine how morally, ethically, and sexually pure you are. As you go through the test, you mark off each thing you’ve done. At the end of the test, you count up your answers, and figure out your percentage — the more you’ve done, the lower your final score, and the less “pure” you are.

It’s all in good fun, of course, and they make a great party game. The only solid rule is that at the end of the test, anyone who took it must admit their final score. It’s entirely up to each person if they want to admit the answers to any particular question — and in many cases, they won’t — but the final score must be admitted!

The person with the lowest (least pure) score then gets hit on by everyone for the rest of the night, while the person with the highest (most pure) score gets giggled at by everyone for the rest of the night. ;)

So…now that all that’s out of the way…anyone care for a test? All of the following links are to downloadable text files. My scores either are posted, or will be after I re-take the tests — leave yours in the comments!

  • The Purity Test: 100 Questions (Quick and dirty, get it out of the way, see what you think. My score: 6%)
  • The Purity Test: 500 Questions (My favorite of the set — long enough to be thorough without getting overly ridiculous or tedious. My score: ??)
  • The Purity Test: 1000 Questions (Starting to get a little overly long, but still bearable. My score: ??)
  • The Purity Test: 2000 Questions (Farily ridiculously long — they’re stretching to find this many questions, and it shows. Included mostly for completeness/curiosity’s sake. My score: ??)

Have fun!

Episcopal Church elects first gay bishop

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Excellent news this morning — the New Hampshire Episcopal Church has elected the nations first openly gay bishop!

The selection of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, 56, who was chosen over three other candidates in voting by New Hampshire clergy and lay Episcopalians, is still subject to confirmation next month by the church’s national General Convention.

The confirmation is likely to be a heated battle with international implications. Robinson drew opposition from many in the Anglican community worldwide.

After the election, Robinson told his supporters to be gentle with those who disagreed with their decision.

“We will show the world how to be a Christian community,” he said. “I plan to be a good bishop, not a gay bishop.”

This is wonderful to hear, and makes me quite glad to have been brought up as part of the Episcopal Church. Many congratulations to Bishop-elect Robinson!

(via D)

Apple woos indie labels for iTMS

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After the iTunes Music Store opened, there were two recurring comments from much of the Mac world: why was it US only, and what about independent labels? It’s commonly accepted that the intricacies of international copyright law are most likely what’s restricting the iTMS to the US for now, but aside from a few rumors, the question of whether the store would open up to more than just the major labels was still unanswered.

Yesterday, however, Apple hosted a special invitation only event for independent and smaller music labels, giving them information on how they could join with the iTMS. A representative from CDBaby was at the event, and has posted an extremely interesting rundown of Apple’s offer to indy labels, mixed in with a lot of information about the iTMS system.

Interesting reading, even just for the peeks into how Apple is handling all the behind-the-scenes details of the iTMS. From what I can see, I think this is just going to keep getting better and better.

That explains it

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I’m the commander. See, I don’t need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.

— Pres. George W. Bush, to Bob Woodward, in Bush at War

(via Tresy)

Related entries

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I’m experimenting with Adam Kalsey’s Related Entried Revisited MovableType modification. It uses a MySQL database query to create a list of entries that should be somewhat similar to each entry, and lists them in the right hand sidebar of each entry’s individual listing page.

Just glancing through what it comes up with, it seems to be grabbing an interesting mix. Some posts I’ve been fairly impressed with what it comes up with, others have seemed fairly random. I’ll leave it in for a bit to see what I think of it.