Because you care, my favorite albums (except for the two EPs) of 2008:

1. Calexico - Carried To Dust

This is one of those albums I just don’t have much to say about. It’s just good. The kind of album I select on my iPod or my PC without thinking. My exposure to them is still pretty limited; I have their previous album and A Feast of Wire and that’s it. Best song: Victor Jara’s Hands.

2. God Is An Astronaut - S/T

These guys have always been close, but never quite there for me. Post-rock isn’t exactly a sparsely populated genre and I have a habit of listening to post-rock albums constantly for about a week and then discarding them. This one is different. They seem to have finally shown more than glimpses of promise. Best song: Shadows.

3. Agalloch - The White EP

Yeah yeah, this isn’t an album. I don’t care. It’s too good for me to leave it off here. The conspicuous absence of folky acoustic pieces was the only downside to their previous album, Ashes Against the Grain. This EP somewhat makes up for that. Best song: Birch White.

4. Opeth - Watershed

I was nervous about this one. Two new members and a previous album that showed some worrying problems (but was still pretty good). It didn’t look promising. In the end, however, they released an album that had some new elements (keyboard solos!) and better songwriting. There’s an over-reliance on abrupt soft LOUD dynamics and they’ve had better metal riffs in previous albums, but overall it’s an excellent album. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that they’re not going to make another MAYH or Still Life, but I’m interested to see where they’re going now.

5. The Decemberists - Always a Bridesmaid EP

Another EP that I think is too good to leave off the list. Less epic than The Crane Wife, but more of what makes The Decemberists so good: catchy songs. Valerie Plame has been stuck in my head for a good two weeks. There’s only one weak song in the bunch (I’m Sticking With You) and even it’s not too bad. Best song: Record Year.

Continue reading ‘Music of 2008′

Of all the days to not be able to find my stocking cap. Christ. -10 degrees makes for a long walk across campus.

Also, car seat warmers > you.

Go. Read.

We don’t torture people, though.

Also, curse you, overzealous defenders of copyright! I wanted to link to a video of Baltar denying the occupational government tortures people. But no…

Shorter K-Lo:

Blagojevich pursued pro-choice policies, so it’s no surprise he’s corrupt.

Yes, it all makes sense now.

A recent comment on my old meaning of Christmas post:

Jeff as I read this article my heart became broken for you. Your emptiness is so deep I can see it your writtings. Not knowing you personally I cannot assume anything but my hope and prayer for you is that the Lord will reveal Himself to you in ways you cannot even explain away and your faith will be restored. You have a wonderful gift of knowledge but even Solomon says it’s worthless without the Lords heart (Ecclesiastes1). Your purpose is far more greater then the one your living for right now. The one you are living for will get smashed up in this machine of life but the one the Lord has for you will last for eternity. Please find your faith again and fill that emptiness you have.

You know, I’ve never really understood this. As she notes, she doesn’t know me. And yet, she’s giving me life advice based on her understanding that I’m “empty” (and apparently not just normal emptiness, but really obvious deep emptiness). Now, I don’t go around giving people my assessment of their life based on a blog (especially one that isn’t particularly personal). I try not to make assumptions about what an individual should believe about gods. I think society would probably be better off without religion and personal beliefs are fun to debate, but people are perfectly capable of being very nice Catholics, Baptists, Muslims, Wiccans, etc. This seems like a reasonable approach to me. It is apparently not reasonable to this person.

Now, I’ll concede that she probably wrote this out of genuine concern. But genuine or not, making assumptions about someone you don’t know reflects poorly on you. Here’s the extent of my personal advice: it would do her good to take off the blinders and realize the world is a little more complicated than “your life sucks without Jesus.”

I’ve seen people say that to have a successful blog you should pick a topic you like and focus on it. That certainly rings true. This blog, on the other hand, is horribly unfocused. Politics, religion, science, technology…kind of a mess. It explains why my traffic has cratered since I left college; my original audience was for politics and that’s far less of a focus than it used to be here.

I’m not changing anything, but it’s kind of amusing.

I was reading this interview with Bjarne Stroustrup (via /.) and it got me thinking about my own CS education at Montana State.

I came into the CS program having done little more than HTML and a chapter of a Java book. That first Java program (after “hello, world,” of course) was one where when my brother’s name was entered in a prompt it printed “you suck” and when anyone else’s name was entered it printed “you’re cool.” Good times.
Continue reading ‘Computer science’

I don’t think nativity displays on public property are necessarily unconstitutional, provided local governments allow other religious displays. I’m not going to get bent out of shape over it, as long as there’s no preference for one religion over another.

On the other hand, I think it’s a better idea to not have these displays. People should express themselves in their own space. Why do I think this? Because people aren’t generally mature enough to handle multiple religious displays on public property.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson is confused about science and religion:

It’s not a clean-cut division. If you have studied at all creationism vs. evolution, there’s theistic or God-controlled evolution and there’s variations on all those themes.

Well, yes. There are lots of ways scientific findings can be incorporated into religious beliefs. But it’s pretty clear where evolution stops and religious interpretations of its significance begin.

I think it would help if everyone understood that evolution is a scientific theory and whatever you think of its implication for religion is your own damn problem.

For what it’s worth, this is my interpretation of Steve Hildebrand’s comments disparaging liberal criticism of Obama during the transition process.

It’s annoying, but useful to the incoming Obama administration. Fending off liberal criticism by repeating centrist mantras about the “most qualified” people broadens their appeal. What Hildebrand lists as what an Obama administration is going to do are arguably progressive priorities. If they can frame their solutions as centrist, it makes their jobs easier. It’s annoying, hinders self-identified liberals’ ability to advocate for policy, and runs the risk of making the left as a whole toxic to mainstream political debate. But it has a purpose and it isn’t necessarily a purpose that’s in opposition to what most liberals want.

So I’m still taking a wait and see attitude. Liberals should continue to critique Obama’s appointees, but they should keep some perspective. Which, by the way, they’re mostly doing, contrary to the claims of beltway apologists.