I've been having all sorts of fun the past month, getting re-acquainted with blogs and blogging. I've been gathering lots of blog feeds to read, working hard on my own blogs, and thinking about blogging, and what it means.

I'm succumbing, finally, to the Friday Cat Blogging compulsion. Don't know what Friday Cat Blogging is? It's a sort of tradition that I've recently discovered among bloggers to post pictures of their cats on Fridays. I have such cute cats, and they are mine for but another month (a good, old, friend of mine is adopting them because I'm going to school.) Thus, there are very few Fridays left to cat blog.

As some of you might know, Apple announced last week that they are switching from using IBM Power PC chips to using Intel chips (primarily because of issues of power consumption). I'm all for it, and I have yet to hear one Mac fan that has problems with it.

In fact, I've been reading all sorts of stories of doom and gloom from both the Windows world and the Linux world.

Not that I think I could begin to write a thousand words about how scary this is.

As some of you who've heard me talk about this know, I am of the opinion that one of the most significant reasons why we don't have things like a single-payer health care system, a truly compassionate safety net, and a livable minimum wage is because of the myth of the American Dream. It goes this way: America is the land of promise. Anyone who works hard can bring themselves up, and become middle class, and many  become rich. The icons of this dream, like Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, and Bill Gates, are trotted out for all to see.

The Daily Kos, and the Liberal Avenger both have entries today (spurred on by Think Progress'  post on it) on the Downing Street memo, which from what I've so far read, proves that Bush lied to us.

OK, I think it's finally time for me to talk about podcasting. First off, even though I'm a complete geek, I am, believe it or not, not an extremely early adopter. I know, I say this, and you shake your head. Anyway, since podcasting is almost, well, passé for the ubergeeks, it's time for me to talk about it.

Two good new blog entries about gay marriage, specifically as it relates to Christianity. Philocrites has an interview by the folks who wrote What God has Joined Together? A Christian Case for Gay Marriage.

I just got back from a 4 day self-retreat. My standard has been Buddhist (Insight) meditation retreats (like at IMS). This was different. I went to a place called the East Mountain Retreat Center which is a sweet little ecumenical retreat center in the southern Berkshires.

I heard a chilling story today about the video tapes that have been shown of the Massacre in Bosnia, back in 1995. The video shows an Orthodox priest blessing the men that are going out to kill the Bosnians.

We have examples all over the world of people who decide that their faith gives them license to hate, and kill. That their god, their belief and reality is the right one, and any others are the wrong ones, and so those lives are, in some senses, forfeit.