Richard Dawkins is a man I would very much like to meet one day. However,as I would very much like to read some of his books too,and haven't gotten around to that yet, I'll keep it on hold.

As much as I like his ideas, however, I hold much more dismal hopes for the usage of the word "Brights" to come into common usage:

Similarly, bright is intended to come to the aid of another beleaguered community in the US: those who, in the most religiose country in the Western world, have no religion, who are variously labeled atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, philosophical naturalists, secularists, or humanists.

I'll keep hoping, though.

One of the more amusing mail lists I subscribe to is Bob Park's What's New. I was especially amused by this excerpt from this week's mailing:

THE BLACKOUT: ARE THE TREES TRYING TO TELL US SOMETHING? A story in the Wall Street Journal suggested that during a period of high electricity demand overheated power lines shorted out when they sagged into trees, resulting in the great blackout of 2003 (WN 5 Sep 03). And many thousands of customers are without electric power today as a result of trees that toppled onto power lines during hurricane Isabel. Fed up with being turned into fast-food wrappers and scattered along highways, trees may be striking back, and the gravitational potential energy available to a full-grown oak is not to be taken lightly. Viewed in this way, the President's "Healthy Forest Initiative" (WN 22 Aug 03) may be thought of as part of the War On Terrorism.

Last night, Lauren and I went out to see Avenue Q. It rocked. All the main puppeteers (although not the writers) have Sesame Street on their resumes (although the show is careful to state that they have no affiliation with Jim Henson or anything related), and you really get the idea that this might be the kind of thing they did after hours on the set for fun. Of the 3 main puppeteers Rick Lyons was definitely the most talented. Although all of them were good, he was the only one that despite him standing next to the puppet doing the voices, I forgot to see him there. His voices were straight out of Sesame Street,and perfect for this show. If you 're in NY and looking to see a Broadway show, this is a hugely better use of your money than seeing another Disney manufactured POS.

Jon and I had a conversation a while back discussing movies in which machines try to kill all humans and take over the world, such as The Matrix and Terminator. We were wondering what it was that the machines actually wanted. It seemed that their plans were to conquer/exterminate all humans, and then.....what?

For some unknown reason this occurred to me again today when thinking about the guys in charge of our government. They seem to be so intent on winning and scoring political points, that they don't seem to have a coherent plan for what to do next. Ok...you won, you control all three branches. Now what?

Today I listen to only Johnny Cash.