Sentential Links #83

Here are this week's links, as selected by my rigorous selection committee. Except it's not a committee. And it's not that rigorous, either.

:: The idea, however, that at this moment in history one could still regard a Bush-Carter foreign policy comparison as unflattering to Bush is preposterous.

:: So, as we start the 45-day "month" of Black History, think about how people of different ethnicities can get real without rancor. And please let me know what that looks like.

:: I will never give up on the delicious experience of curling up in a cozy chair with a good book...but the chance to make use of car time to get lost in some stories is something I appreciate as well. (See, I've never really been able to get into the audio-book thing. I'd rather listen to sports-talk radio and yell at the hosts or the callers, or listen to the classical station and play "Name that composer!" in my head.)

:: I think there needs to be a basic unit of measurement for home repair, a way to gauge how long it will take to get a particular tinkering or puttering job done.

The Tinker Unit or t.u. (Seems like every week Lance writes a post that makes me want to kill myself because I didn't write it. This is the one. I'm not sure if there's any proper way to measure a unit of time for a 'tinker unit', but I'd posit the difference between a putter and a tinker as a tinker being a job where the right tool is not immediately obvious, and may actually involve using a tool for something other than its intended purpose. But you have to be careful here; this presupposes a knowledge of tools. Throwing some paint on a bare patch of fence doesn't go from "putter" to "tinker" just because you used a brand-new chisel to open the paint can.)

:: I'm sure you've noticed that the threat of bad weather always sets off a shopping frenzy. (It does? Really? Hmmmm....)

:: Humanity's Prime Directive should not be avoidance, but instead compassionate action. (Lynn pointed this one out. Looks like a very fascinating blog. This post is about the Prime Directive on Star Trek, which I've never been able to make up my mind about. I think that the idea is that moral lessons are best learned the hard way, and human interference removes the hard way, so to speak. But sometimes, as in the example episode this blogger cites, the resulting non-interference seems at least as morally wrong as the interference, if not moreso.)

:: The question now is, what do I do with them? (You play Godzilla and stomp on them, of course!)

:: A proper digital classical music store has finally arrived on the Web. (Oh, wow. I've been mulling over upgrading to DSL ever since we upgraded to this spiffy new computer, and this may be the deciding factor.)

:: A short story that starts with a guy whipping it out can only end in disaster.

All for this week. As noted, the "Special Edition" of Sentential Links, comprising reader-nominated links to the best things they read in 2006, will appear sometime later this week. So for the LOVE OF GOD, if you have a submission in that regard, SPEAK NOW!!!