You could always make really controversial posts, turn comments off, and watch people's heads explode with the overwhelming but frustrated need to tell you off. It would be just beautifully sadistic.

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How can he watch with comments off?

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He just has to imagine. :)

me, I think it'd be interesting to at least get the title of those "I'll never post them" essays.

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The most rabid would find ways to communicate their displeasure, after stewing in their own juices long enough to really get mad. Highhanded posts in their own journals, off-topic comments on older posts, and indignant emails are just a few off-the-cuff ideas. However, only the most furious and determined would go to that length, meaning that the amount of commentary he'd have to wade through would be vastly reduced.

It'd be fun.

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Then I'd get emails. Those are worse.

Stripped of the public necessity to be nice, they can get downright evil. And then I have to respond.

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Wow, eviller than in comments? That' s a scary thought.

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By "legalized health care" do you mean "socialised health care"?

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I thought you THRIVED on the arguing.

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Why do you think I keep trying to earn a living from it?

Until that day, arguing's the sideline. The day job is programming.

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I think you should pad your resume with an opinion column in a free weekly newspaper.

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A newspaper column is the way to go. That way, when one gets fat and lazy, you can run reader's letters and just do a fourth of the work.

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Hell, with the way U.S. health care is, it might as well be illegal for all the hoops and backdoor dealings you have to go through with it. Sometimes I feel like taking a Ving Rhames double with me to the hospital, just so he can glare balefully at the doctor's lackeys.

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Most women I talked with say they just want someone to listen to their rantings and not actually -give- advice.

So either you're screwing up and giving advice when you're 'supposed' to be listening or ... we need to add something new to to Male Wisdom everywhere and say 'If a woman asks, 'What do you think I should do' about anything, flee'.

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Postal regulators have accepted a proposal from media giant Time Warner that would stifle small and independent publishers in America. The plan unfairly burdens smaller publishers with higher postage rates while locking in special privileges for bigger media companies.

In establishing the U.S. postal system, the nation's founders wanted to ensure that a diversity of viewpoints were available to "the whole mass of the people." Time Warner's rate increase reverses this egalitarian ideal and threatens the marketplace of ideas on which our democracy depends.

Earlier this year, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) rejected a postal rate increase plan offered by the U.S. Postal Service. Instead they opted to implement a complicated plan submitted by media giant Time Warner. (Click here to read the decision and click here for a timeline)

Under the original plan, all publishers would have a mostly equal increase (approx. 12 percent) in the cost for mailing their publications. The Time Warner plan overturned this level playing field to favor large, ad-heavy magazines like People at the expense of smaller publications like In These Times and The American Spectator. It penalizes thousands of small- to medium-sized outlets with disproportionately higher rates while locking in privileges for bigger companies.

It's time stand up for independent media. Demand that Congress step in to stop the unfair rate hikes. The deadline for comments to the Postal Service is fast approaching.

Sign the petition (http://action.freepress.net/campaign/postal) before April 23 to alert Congress and put the Postal Board of Governors on notice.


- source Free Press, USPS

Copy/pasted from NYC_FOR_FREE

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Actually, we debated this on Tuesday with an author who had been published by small presses, and we didn't see the problem with it. The Time-Warner people are big movers, shipping out tons of magazines. The logic of them not getting a discount (and the fact that the small presses we know, who are not shy, have not been shrieking about this to the heavens) made it kind of a wash.

In short, it may be bad, but not so bad that I am convinced to leap off of my chair. Yet.

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Right. It takes so many hours to write coherently on controversial topics and then defend your arguments in a timely and literate fashion. Where does the impetus to do this come from? Seems like so much work for so little payoff.

Hope you can monetize this little thing you've got going, someday.

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You said: "You know, I should probably write about the way that some people ask for advice, and then get all upset when they actually get some."

When you do write that one, please remember that it's human nature to feel bad when you hear a personal criticism given in the name of advice.

Good communication is the responsibility of both parties. If I ask for advice on my love life and you tell me (for example) that I'm an idiot who keeps falling for assholes and that I need to get my head out of my ass, and then blame me for getting upset about that, chances are I won't ask you again. And I'll probably be hurt, because it could have been said nicer. That doesn't mean I wouldn't think about it, agree you're right, and take my head out of my ass, but my first reaction will be emotional because people feel before they think. And you would go away thinking, "well, she asked for advice and then got upset because I gave it to her." Our relationship would have been damaged to the point where you never got a chance to find out that I did end up taking the advice.

I have no idea if you are mean when you give advice and there are people out there who only want to hear what they've already determined to be the right way to do something. I'm just responding to a concern I felt when I read that line.

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OT: Karla's Wheel of Blogging
(Quick & dirty, because someone reading the comic is going to want to spin on it.)

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I am amused. But how'd you get ahold of the strip prematurely? I'm not upset, just curious.

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It's up there with today's date. I only noticed after I opened up the HOTS main page that you're still showing "What You Think He Do After?" there.

One of the many things I do with the Massive Tool program I've written is keep track of all my webcomics. It displays, on one page, all of the comics for the current date which it can (not all comics have the date in the image URL, or allow hotlinking, etc.); and when I hit a button, it opens all of the comics (their actual pages) into my browser, each on a seperate tab. So, when I viewed "today's comics", I saw Karla's Wheel of Blogging; but then when I opened up the HOTS page, I saw the old one.

I assumed that I had just caught you in the midst of updating or something.

So ... what are the couple of wheel options which I can't see?

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I just updated it with more options, from the script. So, can I sponsor this strip for $5?

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Alas, no. It'd be perfect, but that one's already been taken by Penguicon.

*shakes fist at ceiling* SPARTAKHAAAAAAAAN!

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Will the Wheel be appearing again anytime soon?

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Oh, I'm already thinking of the Wheel of Psychodrama.

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Well, I call dibs on sponsoring that one.

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You got it!

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I'd think that a relatively simple two-fold answer

1) American lives are more important to Americans than non-American lives. And its not just 1 A > 1 N/A, its more like 1 A > 10 N/A or even 1 A > 100 N/A. Hell, with some really overzealous quasi-fascist types (the "nuke the fuckers into a glass parking lot" types), its probably 1 A > {infinite} N/A.

2) School shootings are rare. People dying in Iraq is a daily occurance. The new Iraqi national motto might as well be "Another day, another bombing".

Also, personally, I think the VT shootings are more interesting psychologically. Iraq is relatively simple Sunni-vs-Shite, Islamcism, and anti-Americanism. What drives a kid over the edge? What does "Ismael Ax" mean? Is anyone else intrigued by the irony of a Korean kid majoring in English lit killing students in a German language class?

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If I tried to keep things in my head, they get erased by some unseen chalk board eraser. I have to write everything down right away, and later get back to my piles of things I listed. But at least I keep those stacks in certain places and eventually get to them.

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If you don't post the blogs, you've let the terrorists win!

Okay no, not really. I'm just curious about what the two topics are too. Plus, it would be fun to see everyone get all worked up and feel like they're improving the world by arguing uselessly on the interwebs.

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If I promise not to make any drama whatsoever about them, May I please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please read the Fatal Three?


Pretty please? With Kahlua on top?

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Nope. Those are not something I feel like debating.

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