Is being gored to death by a Minotaur really torture?

I could seriously see this on Faux News. Perhaps Glenn Beck's program?

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

Anonymity

** UPDATE 8/24/19: Since I'm working at a public school (no longer at a religious school), I don't feel I have to maintain a pretense of anonymity. At the same time, I take professionalism as a teacher seriously and will refrain from posting personal information. **

** UPDATE 2015: I know that most people, if digging here at this site long enough, could probably identify me. My anonymity is tenuous, at best. I just ask that if anyone desires to identify me, they consider the consequences for me: there's a reason I went from a serious blogger about ten years ago to a very infrequent blogger now. It's called family and career. And those two things take huge precedence over this little soap box. In order to protect them, I write anonymously. Thank you for respecting that. **

Dowd writes something today that is a little near and dear to me. The issue is anonymous blogging. I think the takeaway lesson is this: if you're an anonymous blogger, you have the right to say whatever you like, but there may be consequences for it when you start bashing other individuals or topics that some people are enamored with (politics and religion). But it's far less likely to wreck your life if you have an anonymous blog where you make fun of, say, Christians in general than if you have an anonymous blog where you call an individual a "skank" and "ho" and "ho bag"...After all, no judge can find for a plantiff in a defamation suit and out you if you don't single out someone by name (or identify them individually in some other way).

I think it's true that most people are anonymous on the internet due to the desire to hide from the consequences of their writing. Noble usage of pseudonyms through history was often politically-motivated and the writers feared for their lives or livelihoods. Today people just want to have a soapbox but wear a costume as they stand up there and talk. I guess you could say I'm like that now. It didn't start out that way.

The status of my being a blogger has changed a few times, for a few different reasons (most of the following links are broken because I moved all my posts to this new site and made most of the personal stuff private):

1. I began writing a blog in Nov 2005. It was a public blog that used my real name. It didn't have many readers. One day, I wrote something on Sternberg and it got linked to, and from there, I had a lot of interest in keeping readers. Some of the original research I did has been incorporated into this article at Expelled Exposed.
2. A few people from my hometown, and relatives, learned of my site and I learned of that. I got nervous in Feb 2006 and made my website private. I stupidly deleted a lot of my posts. A lot of this had to do with the fact that I was no longer religious and, while I didn't mind them knowing, I didn't want them reading my stuff in which I "debunked" their religion. If you hunger for more details, here they are.
3. I changed my mind about three months later and began writing again on a public blog. Once, I realized I was in trouble with getting my Ph.D. finished because of the time I was spending online. We see where that worry took me...
4. I ended up doing an interview on Hannity & Colmes in Nov of 2006 over a controversial topic concerning politics and religion. I got really active in doing hands-on real-world stuff for a while there and did less personal blogging.
5. That trend was fairly unbroken until I got my M.S. and started the job search. Then, I decided to go private again, because I was afraid that people at my new job would find this site and I would have to deal with a bunch of BS from it.
6. I planned to write less due to work; I'm pretty much still in that same boat, and my writing over last summer increased only because of free time.
7. Now that we have a child, free time isn't really an issue anymore, since I don't have any.
8. Finally, on around 1/11/09, I decided to use Blogger's export/import feature and start a brand new site. I used a text editor to search and replace all instances of my name and identifying information I could think of and also change all URL references to my old site to this new one -- that's why there are so many broken links, btw. I made a lot of my personal posts private (leaving only rants about politics and religion, mostly). I published them here at NSEFL. And I really want to stay anonymous here.
9. ** UPDATE 8/24/19: Since I'm working at a public school (no longer at a religious school), I don't feel I have to maintain a pretense of anonymity. At the same time, I take professionalism as a teacher seriously and will refrain from posting personal information. **

I guess I think I have lots of really important things to say and I need a soapbox. But regardless of merit, I think everyone has the right to have an anonymous soapbox so long as they don't single out individuals or put up embarrassing or defamatory things about people. At that point, IMHO (and the in humble opinion of the judge in the case Dowd writes about) you lose your right to privacy:

“...the dangers of its misuse cannot be ignored. The protection of the right to communicate anonymously must be balanced against the need to assure that those persons who choose to abuse the opportunities presented by this medium can be made to answer for such transgressions.”

Cyberbullies, she wrote, cannot hide “behind an illusory shield of purported First Amendment rights.”

Indeed.

Death wish

I want to be cremated before any ceremony friends and family have in my honor. At said ceremony, I want Eva Cassidy's version of "Fields of Gold" to play. Check it out here.


Also I think I'd like this version of Sting's "Shape of My Heart" played (this other version is cool but a little dramatic). If you listen to the lyrics it may or may not seem appropriate to you, since it's about cards on the surface, but I like the subtle underlying theme and think it's a beautiful melody.

Finally, I have loved "Dust in the Wind" since I heard the original version from Kansas. Although I prefer such ballads acoustic, the only version I can find besides theirs I like are acoustic female vocals like Sarah Brightman's version.


Besides those three songs, it doesn't matter. I'll be dead, after all!

CARS

Like many people, I checked my vehicle specs to see if I could trade in a late-90's model Pontiac for a new fuel-efficient ride and get the $4500 rebate.  It's beside the point to question whether we could afford a new car, given that the Pontiac still runs pretty well, as I found I could not participate in "cash for clunkers". 

I was aggravated that the way the program was set up, your old car had a maximum mpg (18), instead of offering the rebate if the improvement in mpg was past a certain amount -- say +6 mpg -- for the new car or truck.  I thought a lot of people would be dumb and just trade in a Suburban for a Tahoe (both gas-hog SUV's).

Part of my pessimism is grounded in the fact that $4 a gallon gas seems like ancient history now, and people have short memories.  Part of my pessimism is grounded in the fact that the economy still sucks, so the people willing to take advantage of the program probably already have plenty of money and don't generally worry about gas expenses to begin with.  Part of my pessimism is just pessimism.

It looks like, so far at least, I was wrong:

The Transportation Department said Monday afternoon that based on 80,500 cash-for-clunker applications — which officials believe is about a third of the total deals so far — average fuel economy of the new vehicles was 9.6 miles per gallon better than the old ones, 25.4 m.p.g. versus 15.8 m.p.g., an improvement of 60.8 percent. The improvement, the department pointed out, is much larger than the minimum required to be eligible for the government rebate: a gain of four miles per gallon for cars and two miles per gallon for trucks.

Part of the reason for the gain was that some people were turning in old trucks for new cars. So far, 83 percent of the “clunkers” were trucks or S.U.V.’s and 60 percent of the new vehicles were cars, the department said.

Maybe we have learned our lessons -- economically, politically, environmentally, whatever.  The glory days of the big-ass American SUV are hopefully gone forever. 

I don't know enough economics or environmental stuff to say whether or not this program is "worth the money" in terms of stimulating growth and saving gas (criticisms here and here).  My feeling is that if the sales continue in the same trend -- trading larger vehicles for smaller ones -- that the program will be a success on both counts.