I think it is terrific that these drugs are going generic. It should significantly increase peoples’ access to them and make care for people who are on public assistance due to mental illness be more affordable.

After Jethro Tull:

Let me bring her, Faggots of Wood
So Wicci burns much better, and she will glow…

[AUTO-DA-FADEOUT]

Steve

In the last section of the book Robert J. Wallis’s essay on modern paganism considers the “re-enchantment” of the present. His account of current debates between pagans, archaeologists and museum curators about the treatment of ancient sites and human remains suggests that a less purely materialistic view of the past is once more gaining ground. When Lindow Man, the body found in Lindow Moss, was loaned to Manchester by the British Museum for a year from April 2008, a “consultation report” led to an opening ceremony for the exhibition that included a pagan ritual, and the display was augmented with a shrine space for offerings to the ancestors. Edward Lhuyd would have been astonished by the recurrence of such beliefs; John Aubrey probably would not.

*Reviewing Megan Aldrich and Robert J. Wallis, editors
ANTIQUARIES AND ARCHAISTS
The past in the past, the past in the present

If his heart is in the right place, which I doubt, then he needs to make the point to the American public that health care reform is impossible without ending the wars overseas, which are bankrupting the country. Americans can no longer pay for both empire spending and domestic spending.

And he had all the political capital in the world in January to end these wars, and usher in real health care reform, but he isn’t an independent leader – he is surrounded by the military and financial establishment of the country, who have become more powerful in the last decade thanks to the policies of the Bush administration.

This is a corruption of the original song, title long since lost, that admonishes the faithful to have plenty of faggots (of wood) handy for the witch-burning festival. Witches, you see, were notoriously difficult to combust, and it was considered gauche to use oil or alcohol to assist the process.

From my POV, revealed faiths cannot help embracing evangelism sooner or later, at least if they want to keep their numbers up. Acquired faiths have no such onus, since we find new members at the same time they find us.

The Great Dogmas cannot escape the little Dogma Tics. ;-)

I hope so, but health care “reform” and other government policies may slow development of new medical technology.

The issue of hate is an interesting one. pagans dont really proselytize, so I am not sure why some people hate them so much. i can sort of understand hate when you have two large groups competing for the same population, like Irish catholics and Protestants, but Pagans are no threat. Must be the witch thing and the confusion about devil worship.

Steve

Steve

Steve

Not to be confused with the old Kneel Dimin’ hymn (sung in the pagans’ stone-hewn pews when passing the collection gourd), “A Pagan in Blue Jeans”:

♫ Wicci walks
And she can tell the time, no need for clocks
As long as she can see the sun and moon
She’s nobody’s loon
A pagan in blue jeans, Babe… ♫

I can’t wait for the Alexandrian snipoff – (ouch) er, spinoff – Seventy-Six Things You Probably Know – Or Will, Eventually – About Franklins (Or One of Them), the number chosen for him by me with hometown-boy license, or Philadelphia Freedom, which makes me knee-high to him, already, in seeing said tally vindicated, already, in my projected Item #1, viz.:

Franklin is NOT ten feet tall.

He is, though, six-foot four – or seventy-six inches: this we know, for our Franklin told us so.

Gus diZerega: Sabbats Are Sacred Days that Celebrate the “Wheel of the Year”

I always loved the old 1972 Steely Pagan (pronounced pahGAN) hit, “Wheeling in the Year”, and its follow-ups, “Do It Pagan”, “Wicci Don’t Lose That Lumber” (consecrating an enchanted barn-raising), “Pag” (♫”Pag – it will come back to you…”♫) and “Pagan Blues” (♫”This is the night/Of the moon-standing man…They call Philadelphia the ’sixers’ Pride/Call me Pagan Blues (Pagan Blues)”♫), even more…

As it were: after the drugs become generic, so may the story – at which time, though, we might call the latter not so much generic as viral…

It comes from my instinctive tendency to employ free association, often completely disengaged from the local context.

For me, non sequitur is an interesting concept with which I like to play. ;-)

That said, this isn’t necessarily an argument for “staying the course”; it could just as easily be an argument for

a) cutting our losses now, but also

b) improving border security, so that the next time AQ (or someone else) tries to exploit our perceived weakness, they find the door slammed in their face; and

c) executing something like the Pournelle Policy (*) the next time someone does successfully attack us; and then repeating as necessary.

(*) http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail280.html#case