You know, it's things like this that make me want to learn Láadan.

"This" is a book-length essay about Fred Phelps, the abominable "pastor" of the Westboro Baptist Church.  He and his clan (his wife, the nine children of 13 who did not leave his household, their spouses and children) are the ones who show up at the funerals of gay folks with signs reading "God hates fags" and similar charming slogans.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the most fundamental "two kinds of people" division out there is whether or not you care what other people get up to if it doesn't affect you¹.  Phelps and his ilk are just the Caring part of that division, taken to its most virulent extreme.  It doesn't help that the man appears to be a narcissist of the first water, doing everything in his power to stay in the spotlight and in control of those around him at all times.

I hesitate to say that there are (to borrow a phrase from Firefly) some people who just need killin', but if I were to say such a thing I know at least one who'd be on my particular version of the Little List...

1: Caring about others' business is not, by the way, limited to the conservative side of the political spectrum, as witness the radical feminists who insist that a woman who loves her job as a stripper must be secretly from an abusive home...or that women who are attracted to men are somehow Betraying The Sisterhood.

I am rather thoroughly grateful that I don't own enough property or stock or whatever to have to worry about things like capital gains taxes, and if/when I ever do I'm gonna hire an accountant to worry about those things for me, because even when it's neatly laid out and explained, the intricacies of such things as the 1031 tax free exchange are not precisely an open book to me.  I'm sure I could figure it out if I had to, but I'm very pleased I don't have to; that's what professional accountants are for.

Those of my Gentle Readers who do have enough property to have to worry about this sort of thing no doubt also already have accountants (and/or enough training to handle the details themselves), but it's never a bad thing to get some more education for yourself, so it's cool to have more places to read up.  And if you decide, in the end, that it's more than you want to learn, why, those accountants are always waiting where you can get them with a phone call.  But for your own reality-check purposes--because, sad though it is, our business associates do not always have our best interests at heart--having somewhere to look things up on your own is nothing but a good thing.   The Net may not make us all instant experts, but it can make us better informed.

No one is permitted any longer to refer to their knitting projects with gendered pronouns.

Even if the hairs in the wool actually contained chromosomes (which I don't think they do), the wool is not a gendered organism.  The yarn is even less gendered if it's not wool.  And a sweater, even if the pattern is named "Annabelle" or "Mickey" or "Juliette" or "Steve", is not gendered either.  It's an inanimate object, it's not even a vehicle, it's it, not she or he.  Just deal with it.

I have not yet gotten so thoroughly into this whole make-money-on-the-web thing that I've found myself in need of specialized stuff like a keyword tracking tool or more statistics managing than I can get out of my blogging platform, but the idea does rather intrigue me.  I'm not sure what "actionable" means in this context, except that I'm pretty clear it's not "something you can sue over", but I'm sure it's meaningful to those who have really seriously studied the subject; iSpionage (not the world's best name, in my opinion, having as it does connotations of spying on your readers) promises to provide it, and is going into beta even as we speak.  They have fewer than 50 open slots left, so if you want to try out a system that will tell you more about your readers, now's the time to get in on the action.

Steve Stirling's posting chapters of his latest Change book, The Scourge of God, on his website.  Having just read Chapter 8, I have only one thing to say: Weathertop much?  It wasn't enough that he was ringing yet another set of changes on the Matter of Britain; he's dragging in The Lord of the Rings now, too--though I'm sure Astrid would say it had been that way all along.  But heck, there were even nine of them...

I seem to recall having written about Lifelock before, but it's worth pointing in its general direction again if for no other reason than because not everyone has a computer-savvy paranoid living in their house.  My identity is aaaaall sewn up, barring someone being able to break the encryption on the wireless router (unlikely, as Liam naturally insisted on the highest level), and we do stuff like tearing up anything with identifying information on it and disposing of the bits in more than one bag.  But not everyone's that paranoid, nor wants to take that kind of time, so a service that keeps track of what's happening with your accounts is not a bad idea.  In fact I think it's a fine plan.

I'm starting to wonder when my new glasses are going to arrive; it's been two weeks since I had my appointment and they said a week and a half.  Perhaps I should call them and ask.

Of course, having new glasses raises the question of what to do with the old glasses, which are perfectly serviceable except that the lenses are starting to get dinged up.  I could just keep them (somewhere the cats can't get at them) to take to Pennsic and similar, or I guess I could donate them somewhere, but I think the odds of someone else having my wacky prescription are low at best. 

This is a SC post!

You can't make fudge without sugar, which is too bad because if I made fudge I'd have to eat it all myself.  I'd have to get Liam some other candy, but fortunately there are places out there that make sugar-free candy.  The one the link points at even lets you makeup your own gift baskets, which is kind of cool because you know the premade assortments always include stuff you don't like or lack one thing that you have to buy a bigger assortment to get; being able to decide for yourself allows for better matches with the recipient.  Honestly, I think $50 is a bit much for a dozen chocolate-covered strawberries...but really, sometimes you just don't care...

I am pleased to see that I am not the only person who wasn't crazy about Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother.  One of the people who doesn't like it is even an actual teenager, which removes the "not the target audience" problem (though I read and enjoy "young adult" books pretty regularly).

Trusting as I do the opinions of the denizens of Making Light, I was very disappointed; I suspect I'd have enjoyed the book more if it hadn't been for all the people there saying it was the best thing since sliced bread. 

In general, I'm in favor of getting my nutrients from the food I'm eating (like the fabulous tomato-and-mozzarella salad I had for lunch, which had a flavr nom nom nom), but sometimes it's harder than others.  Even though the modern American can get tomatoes in the middle of winter these days (not to mention in early May), there's something in my mind that tells me I shouldn't eat tomatoes when there's snow on the ground, if for no other reason than because such things have to be shipped an awfully long way to get to me in Pennsylvania in December.  In such cases, things like vitamin supplements can be really handy.  But I hate going to the vitamin stores, because there's generally someone behind the counter who gives me the hairy eyeball for my lack of well-defined muscles.

Hence, when I give up on strictly natural vitality and go for the kind that comes in pill form, once again the Internet is my savior.  The more variety the better, too, because the popular brands of vitamin sold in grocery stores and the like often lack useful things (folic acid, anyone?) or have something I don't really need--vitamin K is fat soluble, people, you don't need it every day.   So sites like Choice Nutritionals are quite handy for my vitamin shopping on those occasions when I need to do any.  Now if I could just get my prescription meds that way too...