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  • Tim Bray: “Every time I open the pages, I get a little thrill at the thought that I'm reading words written two and a half millenia ago.” I've been getting the same thrill, having read a few "classics" for class. And this after thinking that reading the classics was a waste of time, since we're swimming in a Western culture that constantly references it. Bray is talking about Herodotus, and I think I prefered Thucydides, both in style and content. Bray talks in the end about Herodotus that it's tempting to draw parallels to current events, but that it doesn't have much mileage. Worth checking out if you want a brief taste of one of the classics.
  • George Lakoff argues that liberals and progressives have to change how they frame the debate. I'll admit to being seduced by the rhetoric of conservatism (a few years of reading The National Post, especially in its early days, was all it took). My dad is reporting some success in changing the culture of responses to industrial accidents: instead of emphazing that safety is a good thing—when companies hear, coming from a union, that safety is a good thing, the companies start to wonder as to the ulterior motive of the unions—my dad is trying to popularize the slogan "unsafe is unacceptable", unacceptable to all involved.
  • But She's a Girl links to a program to get your life back into balance.
  • Why Your Wife Won't Have Sex With You: who knew there was so much to talk about on that subject?
  • There's no "birth" in partial-birth abortions. This applies to all polls: “I'd like to know how many of the people who answered that question understood exactly what they were being asked about.”