matthew henry john bartlett

A debate with Wendell Berry about space colonies
text of GK Chesterton’s St. Francis
and from the same – or, why read history:

War had broken out between Assisi and Perugia. It is now fashionable to say in a satirical spirit that such wars did not so much break out as to go on indefinitely between the city states of medieval Italy. It will be enough to say here that if one of those medieval wars had really gone on without stopping for a century, it might possibly have come within a remote distance of killing as many people as we kill in a year, in one of our great modern scientific wars between our great modern industrial empires. (more…)

How Nike conquered skateboard culture (or, why a counterculture gets assimilated if it doesn’t have something like the Qu’ran)
Kathy’s blog, back then
NakedBus.com – inter-city travel from $1 [via Hemi Kingi]

Yes, our house is looking for a housemate again. Yes, one of our flatmates might fall in love with you, and then you’ll have to move out. By why not give a go anywho? The One beckons. dadadadadaaaa! Kathy says that “love” has made Matt “soft in the head”.

Oioops, it’s time for some verbiage, this poor neglected telecommunion methodologically impure mechanism of pseudo-spewdo connexion?? Hale me hearties, I’m channelling Dick Cheney on yo ass! Couldn’t be angrier, more rhetorical, more rhegular (two times a day, most days, daies). I’m a one-man war or terrier! The only thing it’s more scared of than my guns (left and right) is, … – … FREEDOM!! Two exclamation marks, right upside the head.

A sermon from me about Saint Francis

Poem: ‘Hard Rain’, by Tony Hoagland
Jakob Nielson on web participation inequality

Following Nielson: On this blog over the last three years, the top 10% of named commentors post about 84% of the comments. The top three commentors post about quarter of the comments. The top 10% of commentors (in order) were me, Tim, Aaron, David, Richard B, Dan W, Matthew Baird, Deb, Daniel McClelland, Hans, Jono, John, Sam, Rich F, Dennis, Sambo, Rudy, Bryan, Kathy, D, Ben, Ange, RU and Lynton. There is some confusion about which Matthew/Matt is which. Lots of boys in there, eh? It would be somewhat interesting to do the same analysis for the last few months, but this took me 45 minutes to produce and you know Todd.

UP-to-the-minute-DATE:
And you’ll be pleased to learn that the numbers on the last twelve months are: the top 10% of named commentors post about 48% of the comments. The top 10% of commentors were: me, Tim, Dennis, Sambo, Richard B, Aaron. Next few: Daniel McClelland, Matthew Baird, Hans, Rudy, D, Jono, Richface, a, Ben, Deb, Anabelle, Bel and James K. The curve is getting flatter, i.e. there’s less participation inequality than there used to be. Another blow for FREEDOM!!

Says Ed Brown:

‘Total depravity’ does not mean that people are as bad as possible, rather it means that even the good which a person may intend is faulty in its premise, false in its motive and weak in its implementation, and there is no mere refinement of natural capacities that can correct this condition.

My friend Hannah told me about this new word she learned the other week. Conglutinates. Some baby mussels are conglutinates, and they glob together in the shape and colour of wee fish, so that a real fish will come along and eat them up, so that the wee mussels can attach parasite-wise for a while to get a bit bigger and then get where they want to go. Which factoid perhaps leads one to ponder the very oddness of the world slash worldmaker.

The California Gold Rush, eco-wise (& mecury & Nevada)

Intro to Wes Jackson
Mikey Havoc and Peter Lineham on the Exclusive Brethren [3.4MB mp3]
The Iraq war and inerrancy
Test farm run on sunlight

Source: Michael Grubb’s presentation [480KB PDF]
at the recent VUW climate change conference

What would it be like if China lived like clean green NZ?

Virtue ethics on Radio National, feat. Stanley Hauerwas [audio & transcript]

Resonding to a comment by Lynton, here is a start at defining what ’stewardliness’ means in the area of global warming. If one accepts the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) objective* of “the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous** anthropogenic interference with the climate system”, and their figure of 2 degrees C as the maximum allowable global average temperature increase over pre-industrial levels, then stewardliness means working in whatever circles one has authority over or influence in to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We all at least have some authority over our own lives, and possibly also over a household, or business unit, or church etc etc.

* lots more of this sort of stuff in Dr Bert Metz’s presentation from the CC conference
** see local prof Peter Barrett’s article for what ‘dangerous’ means.

Big archive of faith/science lectures & articles
Amory Lovins, a very smart man, on GE [streaming RealVideo]
Lady gets pretty w/lighting, makeup & Photoshop [flash video, via Alexia]
Michael Polanyi on science, doubt, belief, neutrality

The Benedictine vow of stability
Augustine, love, civil servants, continence
Wikitravel world travel guide
Fr Richard Rohr on God vs. ego, speaking in Welly earlier this week [video]

Climate change action in the UK [via Tim M]

John Barach on anorexia, modesty, intensity, control

Can anyone recommend a good p2p filesharing program?