From the caveat emptor department...Slashdot points out an HDMI cable at Best Buy priced at $1095.99. A typo? Automatic pricing gone wild? No, Best Buy carries a whole line of insanely priced "AudioQuest" brand cables. (Another good reason to not send Best Buy your business.)

I've been pointing out Ron Paul's history of publishing vile racist and homophobic newsletters for years. Now mrdestructo.com has found, scanned, and posted dozens of the documents in question. "Mobutu Sese Seko" also posits a possible explanation I had not considered: Paul is neither a racist nor incompetent to run a 'zine, but is deliberately publishing this crap to rile up support (and money) from racists.

Also on the Paul front, two demonstrations of his opposition to liberty: Paul once introduced a Constitutional amendment to allow the states to outlaw destruction of the flag (i.e., burning the flag in protest), and he has stated that there is no right to privacy and that states can legitimately outlaw consensual sexual behavior. (He also describes here his opposition to the separation of church and state, but that's old news.)

Two posts I made to the Free Spirit Forum today, that may be of interest to FSA members who don't follow that list.

[name and address elided] writes:

> If one of the (reasonable) concerns about FSA and FSG leadership is
> transparency, it'd be valuable to have information like this posted/
> specified, rather than referred to.

I think that the concern with transparency and openness gets to the core of the idea of changing the rules for membership -- because it hits on why people choose to become or not to become members. If people feel that members are not being informed of what's going on and not being given a proper chance to participate in decision-making, why would they choose to become or stay members?

Senator Bernie Sanders (one of the few American office-holders I'd like to sit down to lunch with) has proposed a Constitutional amendment to remove corporate personhood and get corporate money of of politics. It provides as follows:

As you may know, the Free Spirit Alliance is considering a change to its Articles of Incorporation to make it easier for people to become members. I've had a chance to review the proposed changes. While I appreciate Cat's work on this, and support the general idea, I have a very serious concern with the following provision of the proposed amendments:

"Any voting member has the right to request that another individual be placed on a ban list and removed from the membership roll. This would be followed by a vote at a meeting after notice has been sent to the individual. A ⅔ majority of all members in attendance, either in person or
by proxy, at that meeting would be required to place an individual on the ban list. In addition, being ejected from one of the Corporation's events automatically places a person on the ban list."

As I read this, since ejection from an event is at the sole discretion of the event coordinator, the FSG and Beltane coordinators can -- without recourse or due process -- strip an FSA member of their membership. However much we may trust the folks who currently coordinate our events, I don't think this is a wise policy.

Unless someone can point out something I'm missing, I must vote "no" on the proposed change, and ask that other members do likewise.

A fable:

Once upon a time, there was a king. As kings go, he was far from the worst his people had seen. He was of a kinder disposition than the tyrants of neighboring lands, and under his rule his people were more prosperous than their grandparents had been. (Though some people pointed out that this prosperity was based on chopping down the old forest, selling the wood, and cultivating more land, and what would the people do when the forest ran out?)

Still, he was a king. Because of an accident of birth, he lived a privileged life in a palace, worse the finest clothes, and feasted every night, while his people lived in rude huts, worse corse cloth, and ate simple fare. But being a decent king, he always left the scraps from his nightly feast for any hungry peasants.

Harry Morgan, the actor best known for portraying Col. Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H, died today. He was 96.

According to the NYT, Mr. Morgan had continuing roles in at least 10 TV series, and once estimated that he had appeared in one prime-time show or another for 35 straight years; and he had over 100 movie roles. He was never a star -- he was something more important and challenging, an actor.

It was his role as M*A*S*H's Colonel Potter, from 1975 to 1983, that most people will remember him for. M*A*S*H was one of the shows I grew up on, and certainly had an influence on me. Rest in peace, Mr. Morgan.

I've always been a bit fascinated by maps. When I was a kid, we had placemats with a historical/cultural map of the Chesapeake Bay, and being the "read anything in front of me" child that I was this may have been formative. I remember having a world political map on the wall, and later a world topographic map (including the sea floor) on my ceiling. I always loved looking at the maps of fantasy realms like Middle Earth and Earthsea that would show up in the front of books. (Yes, I am geek.) When I started driving, back in the days before GPS and smartphones, I had a good collection of ADC street atlases floating around the car.

The Senate will soon vote on S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. The bill authorizes $663 billion in military spending for the fiscal year that began October 1. This is considered "must pass" legislation, since it funds the military-industrial complex and our endless war. (Probably the best thing for the nation and the world would be for it to fail to pass, forcing us to bring the troops home and freeing up that $663,000,000,000 for peaceful uses, but, fat chance of that.)

Two potential provisions of this bill threaten to return us to the worst abuses of the Bush era.