Latin Quotes and Phrases Dictionary

I don't have anything particularly good for Halloween (there's a really frightening story I'd like to write, related to the Supreme Court, Hurricane Katrina and our future, but I don't want to post it here), so I'll just pass on this wonderful resource.

If you don't have a Latin dictionary on hand, but sometimes run into things you'd like to look up, look no further. There are a lot of other great quotation resources at that site: look what happens when you search for "history"! Here's a sample:

• What experience and history teach is this - that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it. -- Hegel
• Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them. -- Tolstoy
• Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety. -- Plato
• The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end. -- Adlai Stevenson
• If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm any hostility. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Historia est vitae magistra - History is the tutor of life

A Geneaology of Blogging

• blogfather: Ralph Luker, of Cliopatria
• Left, Right, or Other: Forwards
• blog-birth-month: November 2004
• blog-children: Not that I know of
• existing lineage ... influential, ur-blogger from five years ago: Like I said, Ralph Luker's the man to ask about that

It should be said, though, that my political blogging is an offshoot of my letter-to-the-editor writing, which is a habit that goes back to December 1989 and which was inspired not by a blogger but by my mother, who taught me the value of speaking out and writing effectively. Also, like Orac, I have USENET and listserv experience starting in the early 1990s. This blogging thing is fun, but it's more evolutionary than its cheerleaders let on.

I'm consistently inconsistent....

This is the same quiz I took before where Neo-Pagan came out on top, but the results this time are somehow clearer. Perhaps it has to do with the debate I'm involved in that has clarified my views.

1. Reform Judaism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (95%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (93%)
4. Neo-Pagan (85%)
5. Bahi'i Faith (84%)
6. Sikhism (78%)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (78%)
8. Orthodox Judaism (75%)
9. Mahayana Buddhism (71%)
10. Secular Humanism (70%)
11. Islam (70%)
12. New Age (70%)
13. Jainism (68%)
14. Orthodox Quaker (59%)
15. Theravada Buddhism (59%)
16. Taoism (51%)
17. New Thought (49%)
18. Nontheist (48%)
19. Scientology (48%)
20. Hinduism (45%)
21. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (40%)
22. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (39%)
23. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (33%)
24. Seventh Day Adventist (33%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (26%)
26. Roman Catholic (26%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (19%)

Fuzzy Fun?

Orac, host of the adventures of the most disturbing mascot since the ... no, there's nothing like it... has been posting what now looks like a series of links: First there was the holiday-shopping ready microbial plush toys. Now comes the hand-knitted digestive tract.

Speaking of indictments...

Anne Zook points to Janice Kapinski (Res. Col., ret.)'s August interview (I missed it, too, Anne).

Now, it's not entirely fair to extrapolate from the problems we were having almost two years ago to what's happening now. But there sure hasn't been a lot of evidence that things have been getting better, have there?

I always liked Sulu....

George Takei, in addition to being a fine actor (who usually gets really crappy roles but epitomizes the "there are no small parts" dictum) and forthright speaker on important issues [via] has come out of the closet as a homosexual [via].

Don't Look Back....

...something might be gaining on you. -- Satchel Paige

When Reality Doesn't Bite

A Jew, speaking Hebrew, identifying herself as Israeli, went to Gaza and had a lovely time. [via , via]

It's kind of funny what happens when we stop treating each other as symbols and units of exchange, and start treating each other like people. It's a cliche, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

Earthquake Relief Day

Sepoy, of The Vertiginous Chapati, has more than enough good groups on tap to spend all the money you can spare. This is life-saving money, at a crucial time. I've put it off too long myself, but I'm doing it today.

Update: I'm modifying the time stamp to put this back on top of the blog for another day. Sepoy has added to this post a very powerful essay on the situation and the remarkable silence.

No, I'm not kidding

Science groups deny KS school board right to use evolution curriculum because of the stupid "balanced" ID approach the board is taking. Of course, the school board could claim the "parody exemption" from copyright permission....