In 2001, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, not yet Pope, sent out a letter about the child abuse to all the Bishops of the Church, telling them that a certain crime was grounds of excommunication from the Catholic Church. That was sharing evidence about child rape with the civil authorities or press.

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This review says ( Read more... )

I was recently running odds in my head for a certain real-life scenario, and came across a 0.10% chance of killing Jeremy in self-defense after he came after me with a knife. I back-tracked; what were the odds that he would be coming after me in a knife in the first place? Oh, about 0.15%. Which means I believe that two thirds of the time I'm being ( Read more... )

I was here lost in daydreams, and mentioned that one of the characters in my fantasy world had superhuman calculation abilities, that she could give the log base 3 of pi to the 45th power to ten digits. It struck me that, hey, I could do it to one significant digit-V svtherq vg jnf svsgl, naq vg'f npghnyyl sbhegl-fvk cbvag avar. (That is, yes, I ( Read more... )

I'm heading off to Las Vegas for a week to spend some time with family, so I shouldn't have much computer time. Due to airplane rules, I have to stuff my clothes in my carry-on bag, but it turns out you can get quite a few more books in a backpack by stuffing them in an Amazon box first. If I strike it rich, the whole character of my blog may ( Read more... )

Quote from a friend on IM:
* Also, you're like the awesomest fluffy emotional punching pillow ever.
* How could I ever replace that?

I'm leaving the speaker anonymous, but thanks. That's just what I need to know.

I picked up Lunatic Lovers of Language: Imaginary Languages and their Inventors at the used bookstore because it was there and it's one of the few books about constructed languages in general. The problem is, it annoys the hell out of me; I'm not sure I can actually read the book. Let's start with the title; is anyone particularly draw to a title ( Read more... )

I ran across Simeon II of Bulgaria on Wikipedia, and thought he was deserving of more mention. "Simeon is one of the last living heads of state from the World War II-era, the only living person who bears the Slavonic title 'Tsar', and the only monarch in history to have become the head of government through democratic elections." Wow. I don't know ( Read more... )

I've always felt that in some sense, we had no right to behave towards the South as we did in the Civil War; that in a democracy, if they wanted to secede, they had every right to. It struck me today that it would have been entirely advantageous for us to let them to, too, had we handled it right. We let them construct a cute little government, and ( Read more... )

I'm playing GNOME Hearts. For a lark, I decided to start every hand thinking I'm going to shoot the moon. I wussed out a couple times; if you have no cards higher than a ten, there's not much point. But it turns out, in general, this is a winning strategy for the game. Humans, if you were playing them, and tried this strategy, they would stop ( Read more... )