Internet Explorer 7 was released recently. You should go and download the new version, even if you use Firefox. It is a vast improvement over IE6 (hello? tabs?); Microsoft finally released software capable of rendering this site correctly.
Many movies from Japan replace action with atmosphere. The Place Promised In Our Early Days is one such movie. Almost everything in the movie — artwork, audio, music, screenplay — was done by Makoto Shinkai. His sensitive, gentle character fills the movie; pregnant pauses convey deep feeling nearly as often as the dialog.
This movie is not about any particular event so much as it is about exploring the beauty of the world and deep feelings of loneliness. If this sounds like your kind of thing, I strongly encourage you to rent it from netflix and watch it. The interviews with the director and Hiroki’s voice actor are especially good.
Be sure to watch the movie in Japanese. The English version seems to have a different feeling. Compare the trailers:
People should follow the customs of the culture they immerse themselves in.  Americans take their shoes off before going inside a house or school in Japan.  Japanese shake our hands when greeting us. In Bali it is impolite for women to wear pants or shorts inside a Balinese temple. So courteous westerners dress accordingly and don a sarong.
We should expect Muslims to show the same respect for our culture that we should show theirs. When we communicate, we look people in the eye and show our faces. Anyone unwilling to show this level of professional respect for others is rude and unsuitable for working in any capacity that involves interacting with people face to face.
Just as it would be appropriate for someone to fire a teacher who: spat on students; swore continuously; revealed himself to students, there would be nothing wrong with firing a teacher who insisted that she come to work in a full-face veil.
However, our country should not make a habit of criminalizing rude behavior (see: flag burning). In no way should we criminalize veils. There are plenty of activities which are not illegal which will nonetheless get you fired for doing them in public (see: downloading pornography).
Criminalizing veils or nose rings goes against every ideal our country aspires to. People should be free to make bad, rude choices, and we should be free to ridicule and punish them socially for it.
Anne Applebaum wrote a great article on this over at Slate.
People modify the amount of calories they consume based on who they are around and how many calories they believe they are eating.
Women choose clothing that advertises their menstrual cycle; men catch the drift.
Fat people are stupider.
Averaging ugly girls together result in an ugly girl. Averaging attractive girls together result in attractive girls. Symmetry is not an important part of beauty. People assume attractive people are busier, more fun and everything else good.
Color strongly alters the potency of a placebo.
Psychologists show their respect for life by by turning lab rats into LED arrays.
If you are like me, you grew up learning about how great the United States was; how peaceful its citizens were — aside from massacring a continent full of Indians — not to mention pushing out the French, Spanish, Russians, British*… How peaceful are we, really:
Surveys commissioned by the German Marshall Fund consistently show that 80 percent of Americans agree with the proposition that “[u]nder some conditions, war is necessary to obtain justice.” In France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, less than one-third of the population agrees.
Peaceful indeed. We have started wars every 19 months since 1989 (Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq). This trend does not vary between when Democrats controlled the White House and now.
* Note: Great Britain is not included in the list of nations shunning war; Perhaps this is why we did not could not wrestle Canada out of Britain’s hands.
Xinhua reports that Apple will sell AIDS. Translation mishap I think. The market is not big enough.
Russia and China today voted to impose sactions on North Korea. This is a wonderful development. It punishes North Korea for blatantly disgrarding international opinion and sends a message to Iran that continuing its nuclear program will not be supported in the world. It also suggests the the Axis of Oil will not necessarily start a third world war with the United States and allies.
“The View with a clue” has a great vibe. Check it out. I totally dig a woman with opinions.
Majority watch has an excellent, flash-based summary of the congressional race.