Movable Type 4.0 Is Out

It was only 6 months ago that I finally put down my money and upgraded to MT 3.3x …. and if I had waited a little longer, I wouldn’t have had to pay for the upgrade at all.

A bit annoying, frankly, but it’s my own fault for waiting so long, I suppose.

There is NO “NAFTA Superhighway”

It’s amazing that in a world with ever-increasing amounts of available information, people can still fall prey to flat-out incorrect conspiracy theories, but they do. This article in the Nation about the so-called NAFTA Superhighway is a prime example.

I particularly liked this graf, which attempts to explain why so many people are willing to accept rumor over reality:

The myth of the NAFTA Superhighway persists and grows because it taps into deeply felt anxieties about the dizzying dislocations of twenty-first-century global capitalism: a nativist suspicion of Mexico’s designs on US sovereignty, a longing for national identity, the fear of terrorism and porous borders, a growing distrust of the privatizing agenda of a government happy to sell off the people’s assets to the highest bidder and a contempt for the postnational agenda of Davos-style neoliberalism. Indeed, the image of the highway, with its Chinese goods whizzing across the border borne by Mexican truckers on a privatized, foreign-operated road, is almost mundane in its plausibility.

Although apparently there is an effort underway in Texas to build a bunch of new highways there.

Shouldn’t that be a Bachelorette of Arts?

This is pretty pathetic: Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to offer academic program in homemaking. Yes, really:

A description of the homemaking program on the seminary’s Web site says it “endeavors to prepare women to model the characteristics of the godly woman as outlined in Scripture.

“This is accomplished through instruction in homemaking skills, developing insights into home and family while continuing to equip women to understand and engage the culture of today.”

The whole thing sounds like an expensive way to find a ‘suitable’ husband more than anything else. If you honestly believe that the role of a woman is to stay home and raise kids, why would you be getting a bachelor’s degree in the first place?

To be fair, at least not all Baptists share that college’s view on things:

The Rev. Benjamin Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, and a frequent Southern Baptist critic, wrote about the homemaking program on his blog.

“At first it was almost incredible to me,” Cole said. “I thought this is not happening. It’s quite superfluous to the mission of theological education in Southern Baptist life. It’s insulting I would say to many young women training in vital ministry roles.

“It’s yet another example of the ridiculous and silly degree to which some Southern Baptists, Southwestern in particular, are trying to return to what they perceive to be biblical gender roles.”

Good for Rev. Cole.

Friday Random Ten

Another week, another random mix.

1) Lohengrin Prelude – Wagner
2) Shape of My Heart – Backstreet Boys
3) Beat Box – Matisyahu
4) Blood Of Eden – Peter Gabriel
5) My Hometown – Bruce Springsteen
6) It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) – REM
7) Not A Day Goes By – Mandy Patinkin
8) Say It Isn’t So – Hall & Oates
9) Still Take You Home – Arctic Monkeys
10) my funny valentine – Sting

#2 is a little embarrassing. At least it’s the only song of theirs in my collection.