We're totally the aliens, UFOing the Martian landscape. It's more than weird.

Lor--what did you do on the Phoenix?

Yay geekdom for the win! Mars rocks!

Shir, that IS creepy! You like to think of charismatic teachers using their charisma for...good teaching. Not creepy cultishness. And certainly not possibly recruiting their students into cults. Especially if the students are at a small boarding school where they might be especially susceptible to both cults and charisma.

And apparently they started doing so while they still were, eh, well, my teachers.

Maybe they indoctrinated you and you don't even know it!

Do you own a curvy bladed knife?

So I'm reading the Guardian Unlimited and they have an interesting Q&A section and this particular exchange caught my notice:

Professor Joseph Stiglitz, US economist and former senior vice-president of the World Bank asks Naomi Klein, author

Q In The Shock Doctrine, you talk about how free-market fundamentalists use economic crises to impose policies they would not normally be able to put into place. What do you see happening as a result of the current problems in the US? Could this be an exception to your rule? If not, what nefarious policies will result from the current shock to the system we are now facing?

A The Bear Sterns bailout is a pretty classic example of using an economic shock to pass on a significant economic risk to the public while the assets go straight to JP Morgan. We have seen this same pattern - protecting private profits while nationalising debts - many times during other crises. Then there are the bailouts for developers and homebuilders, especially striking in contrast with the laissez-faire attitude towards the more than 2 million Americans who face foreclosure. Meanwhile, Congress's economic stimulus package contained an estimated $50bn in tax cuts and bonuses for business, roughly one-third of the total.

The two things that caught my attention were (a) the rhetorical device characterizing "free market fundamentalists" and (b) the very elegant summation "protecting private profits while nationalising debts."

Of course, bailouts are (b) but that's a handy way to ring it up, and (a) is interesting for the rhetorical inversion.

Thankfully, they weren't so much charismatic. At least not to me. But she was nice, and I liked her because she was a good teacher. I got 95 on my finals in the subject she taught, and it was a hard one (bible, but we don't study it religiously here, mostly as "this is partly your history and partly your heritage"), and it was because of her.

I have no problem with them being fired: I think it's reasonable and fair. But I have problem with the witch hunt (I can't think of any other word right now, though it might be exaggerated) against them, and how it all became really ugly real fast. They had to move out of the town after being threatened. Now, I don't think they're lambs and certainly can take care of themselves, but as much as I'm creeped out about them being cult leaders, I'm also creeped out from the town's reaction to it. If it was my kid in question, I have no doubt I wouldn't want them in town or being my kid's teachers - but it's not, so I don't really know what to think.

Do you own a curvy bladed knife?

No, but now I want to have one! (I wonder what my trigger word is...)

Heh. Maybe Shir IS a charismatic cult leader!! Sure, she comes on all nice and sweet, all "oh, I know Nilly", and we think we like her...that's how she GETS us, see!! Soon, Buffistas will be the HOME to a new international recruiting center of the cult!!

Shirism. Doesn't sound so bad to me.

I just saw the tagline for .45 movie.

"Nobody does revenge like a woman".
This isn't real, right...?

Well, hell hath no fury, etc.