I'm happy to say that there are still plenty of other Cure fans out there. They debuted at #7 in the US and are still #23 on Billboard Hot 100 Albums. I heard them on 101x yesterday (Austin alternative) and they're in the top 20 rotation there. They were debuted at #1 in Mexico, oddly enough, and had good debuts across Europe and in Argentina. But sadly they have not announced any new dates for the Curiosa Festival with Interpol, Mogwai, and others, so I will have to remain detached&hellip .

"The Chief idea of the novel is to portray the positively good man." This object Dostoyevsky has achieved in his 1869 novel The Idiot. It is the story of an invalid, sheltered in childhood, entering high society for the first time. His innocence leads him through fantasy, love, hatred, wealth, jealousy, and all the other attributes of earthly life--especially that life of the elite.

As a matter of religious conviction —and standard English language definition (this definition has shifted since the post was originally written) — I have never felt that the term "gay marriage" meant much of anything, and would, perhaps, even call it an oxymoron. When the government, however, tries to step in and reinforce that definition with legal statutes, I immediately react against it as an unwarranted and discriminatory encroachment upon civil rights.

I understand that this is, for many, a large and complex issue that deserves real thought and consideration. I welcome the debate in the Senate, and trust that this august body will realize that a "marriage amendment" is not in keeping with the spirit and text of the Constitution of the United States—the most powerful secular document ever conceived. I acknowledge that there are instances where the federal government must act to protect the public safety and in doing so, moral questions do at times come up. Nevertheless, I cannot see that the banning of "gay marriages" is a matter for federal jurisdiction or concern; I cannot see that it is a matter of such overwhelming importance to the continued functioning of our society that it should be enshrined in our Constitution.

It has been several months since an InterfaithNews.Net update has been sent out, for which we apologize; your intrepid editor is preparing to move to St. Paul, Minnesota (USA) next month.

As many in the audience already know, Barcelona, Spain will play host to the 2004 Parliament of the World's Religions beginning today (June 7). Please send in your comments afterwards—essays, reviews, critiques, and praise—and we will work to compile them for the benefit of those of us who cannot attend this year's festivities.

As the last update was written in April, the site now contains news from My, June, and this first week of July, as well as three new polls about the site's functioning. So please stop by, enjoy, and vote.

The Cure is the name of The Cure's latest international mega-release. Debuting today and breaking all records (surely some record, maybe best opening day for a 25+ year old alternative college band from southern England?). Well, I suppose that all remains to be seen. Anyway, I am now happily in possession of this newest album from my favorite band in the whole wide world.

And it is good.

So why the blog all the sudden? After hinting at it for years, I've finally decided to take the plunge. Rather than bore you with drawn out prose extolling the virtues of blogging and all that...

Perhaps tomorrow or another day soon I shall extol with melodrama on the virtues of blogging and my sudden embrace of the medium. But not this day. This day I shall speak of loss and of hope.

I am by nature a Stoic. Thus it is not often that I shed a few tears twice in 24 hours.

I've been enjoying the use of OpenSSH in Windows lately but ran into a small problem today: "fork: Permission denied".

I find that Red Hat Linux (dead link removed; SF 2025) is fairly secure by default, but could use a bit of tweaking. This is the first of a series of notes on optimizing and improving security in Linux. Some items may be specific to Red Hat, but most of these notes will be applicable to all systems. In part 1, we look at runlevel services.