A Retrospective, Part 2

Say what you want about the internet, the narcissism of our wired - and now indeed wireless - generation (oh man are these names going to be dated the next time I do something like this!), but the peerless historical records of our day-to-day lives (as long as we remember to back them up) are going to be indispensable when, long after we're dead, someone wants to know just what the hell we were thinking back before cars could fly and the internet became a sentient being. To wit: rummaging through my archives is even now a very telling look into my experience of the Bush years and the war on terror. If you undertake this yourself, you'll find the writings of a young man who looked around and saw the noose of theocracy sliding down around the throat of his beloved secular society, a noose wielded by twin excecutioners: the jihadist boogeyman, and the evangelical zombie. By no means, of course, has the mere election of Obama fixed what ailed the word back then, but neither Pope nor Ayatollah is calling the shots where I live, so clearly the future hasn't turned out as darkly as I imagined it could have (yet...?)

Etarran has charged me with being every inch as dogmatic as the faithful whose beliefs I ridicule, and indeed even the most cursory of glances through my archive reveals this to be more true than I'd like. A particular gem: "If [deeply religious people] cannot, or will not [entertain dissent and discussion], how are they different from common herd animals?" Really? I wrote that? REALLY? Did the apparent resurgence of religious power during the early-to-mid 2000s antagonize and apall me to the extent that I felt the need to dehumanize my political opponents? I should stop before I accidentally invoke Godwin's Law, but there is perhaps a lesson in this that I ought to be intent on learning someday.

With that sobering realization out of the way, I present you with new additions to my retrospective:

Here is what I would like to think is a fairly reasonable argument in favour of reduced meat consumption.

For similar reasons (what I think is a good argument) I like this post as well. It also has a brilliant comment by Etarran that you should read.

Finally, I was going to stop at two, but I reread the first entry in my long-dead SF serial story, and actually liked enough of it to call your attention back to it.

-LOUD!