At What Temperature Do Microchips Burn?

Anyone who is familiar with this blog knows that my profession is law librarian. Today, I was just packing away volumes of a law journal for disposal. They are redundant because all issues are now available on line. I have reservations about doing this. Some might say it is because I love books, I love the feel of books. Their weight in my hands tells of weighty matters. If that were all, I could be justly dismissed as a Luddite. I worry though about the fragility of electronic media and its possible vulnerability to some future repressive regime or great natural disaster. How easy would it be for someone with access and malice to erase our heritage? Farenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper kindles. At what temperature do microchips burn?

Remember the 60's? They Sucked

Anybody who feels nostalgic about the 60's either wasn't old enough to remember them or went through in a substance induced haze. Here are the autobiographical reasons I don't like that decade.

When I was:

In first grade, the world came within snake-bite range of thermonuclear war.
In second grade, the president of the United States was murdered.
In third grade the Vietnam War got good and started.
In sixth grade we had the trifecta; Tet, plus the murders of MLK and RFK.

I remember:

Duck and cover.
Seeing Oswald shot on live TV.
Watching the Thurday morning body counts on the Today show.
Scenes of crowds and tear-gas so often I couldn't keep track of where, when or who.

It seemed like the only happiness was in my family life at home.

Georgia on Our Minds

There's more than enough hypocracy to go around on this one. Russia uses military force to defend the right of self determination of Abkhasia and South Ossetia just a few years after it used military force to crush the life out of Chechnya. Rice recently said that military force is "not the way to deal in the 21st century". Duh what? By my count, the score for countries bombed, invaded or occupied in the last twenty years is: U.S. 6 and Russia 2. I find it rather disturbing that she could say this with a straight face and not get lambasted by either the media or the opposition party.

Voting by Principle

I have always tried to vote for the person I thought would do the best job in the office at stake. This is without regard for party or chances to win. This has frequently led me to vote for candidates I knew had no chance of winning. I did this last May and I expect it will happen again in November. One thing I will never do is vote for the lesser of two evils. Because, as should be obvious, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

Please don't vote for a candidate just because he will drag the Country to perdition a little slower than the other guy.

Is Anyone Suprised?

Well, the FISA revision passed with a filibuster-proof majority. Another piece of our civil liberties chipped away.

To anyone who thought the Democrat Congress would stand-up to the Administration or who thought Obama was actually different, here's your sign.

*****STUPID!*****

Back From Gone

I'm probably going to be reviving this blog in the near future to post political, fun and general stuff. Why create a new one?

My, That Looks Del.icio.us

Having looked into it just a little, I can see the obvious benefits of having a central place for my tags. There have been times when I've been on my home computer and wanted to access a work-related site only to have to search from scratch to find it again. It is a good means of pooling resources and picking the brains of others with similar interests. There is no need for everybody who enters a new territory to make his own map.