An open letter to certain parties...

"Greatest country in the world" is a meaningless statement until and unless you give some sort of metric. In what way is this the "greatest" country? What, exactly, are you measuring here? That's not sarcasm - or, at least, it doesn't have to be. Just give me something to work with here!

(I've tried actually asking people individually, but I've never gotten anything constructive out of them. I think they don't know what they mean either.)

Two random links

First, rachelmanija has a poll up on Books of Childhood and the Tragic Fates of Dogs. Go for the poll, stay for the comments!

Secondly, apparently everybody is interested in this issue of housing and zoning, and somebody linked to me this post on the difference between zoning laws in the US and Japan.