—–Original Message—–
From: The Zune Social
To: elwbarf
Subject: New Bronze Artist Power Listener badge awarded!

Hi elwbarf,

Congratulations!

You’ve received the Bronze Artist Power Listener Badge for listening to Insane Clown Posse.

The Social uses badges to recognize active participants, and your listening this month shows the depth of your interest in Insane Clown Posse.

Your new badge is on your Zune Card. Click below to see it:

http://social.zune.net/profile/home.aspx

The Zune Social

because they might encourage untrained people to fight fires, instead of leaving it up to the professionals. Apparently they build flats out of asbestos in Formerly Great Britain:

Dorset Fire and Rescue defended the move, saying: ‘Obviously, in some cases, an extinguisher could come in useful but, with new building regulations, every escape route should be completely fireproof.’

Cancer takes a blogging great; read more here.

I hit some keys to test something and look what popped up!

Thermodynamically, nitrogens bonded to each other are always regarded as guilty until proven innocent - there’s always the fear that they’re going to find a way to throw off their civilized clothes and revert to wild nitrogen gas. That’s a hugely stable compound. If your structure goes that route, all that extra bonding energy it used to have ends up diverted into flying shrapnel and loud noises.

Things I Won’t Work With: Polyazides

Derek Lowe, 26 AUG 2004

Somehow, this evaporated from my blog, so I’m reposting it to make searching for it easier.

The Gandhi Quote

For a year or so now I’ve had this quote as my .sig:

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." — Mahatma Gandhi

I have been asked many times for the source, and just as many times I have been challenged on the accuracy of the quote. Surely this is taken out of context, people ask. To end the debate once and for all, here is the complete quote:

GANDHI: An autobiography. The story of my experiments with Truth

Page 446, on which Gandhi is relating his struggles raising volunteers to fight for the Crown in World War I:

I used to issue leaflets asking people to enlist as recruits. One of the arguments I had used was distasteful to the Commissioner: ‘Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.’ The Commissioner refereed to this and said that he appreciated my presence in the conference in spite of the differences between us. And I had to justify my standpoint as courteously as I could.

In this wonderful book (go and buy it now, it covers everything from gun control to home schooling to constipation (a lot on this last topic, actually) Gandhi repudiates his views when they have changed, and calls out very clearly even minor errors he has made. Never in this book does he step back from condemning gun control; in fact, on page 477 he touches on the classic "when is it time to shut up and shoot the bastards" argument:

As I proceeded further and further with my inquiry into the atrocities that had been committed on the people, I came across tales of Government’s tyranny and the arbitrary despotism of it’s officers such as I was hardly prepared for, and they filled me with deep pain. What surprised me then, and what still continues to fill me with surprise, was the fact that a province that had furnished the largest number of soldiers to the British Government during the war, should have taken all these brutal excesses lying down.

The girls and I headed over the water to 13 Coins for dinner; I didn’t realize it at the time, but they run a turkey special every year. I greatly enjoyed Thanksgiving at 13 Coins; the girls, did, too. Sitting at the bar is always fun; sitting at the bar with cooks that seem to spawn from Hades is like a side of fun with your fun. The cooks had a constant stream of flaming whatevers to cook; we were a good 10’ down the bar from the grill, and we were well warmed by the flambé.

Last night, I took them to the Austin Cantina. I keep trying to like this place; however, I’m certain last night was my last go. I wish them well.

Tasty picture, too.

Looks like HS Precision hired “Teflon” Lon Horiuchi as a spokesman. Click for the full-sized ad:

It’s possible he’s merely being quoted instead of having been hired; either way, party foul.

Update: Yossarian said: I called them and asked about the endorsement. The lady who answered said Horiuchi knows the owner and confirmed the endorsement.

I posted my movie question over on arfcom and had the answer in two minutes. The answer is “Head Office” with Judge Reinhold and Danny Devito. I ordered it from Amazon; hopefully it doesn’t suck.