Thanks for this. I love the really well-informed input.

I do know that these golden, "spiky" roasts are really not "my cup of tea", and they have taken the premium-coffee set for a whirl.

Dark roasting can hide an inferior coffee, so it appears that the reverse assumption is being made: dark roasts are inferior quality.

Frankly? I like burgundies. I like 82% cacao. I like Guiness and top-fermented Ales that often contain no hops. I like dark coffees, and light ones make my skin itch... :-)

I hate the American stuff. Bright, tangy, awful.

Give me Arabica from Java, Indonesia, equatorial Africa.

Yeah, I don't care what the fixed-gears with handle-bar moustaches say, down at Intellgensia. They're the same sheep-flock gourmets, who swill down small batch beers, with preference for hops to malt. Hops. Yechh.

3: Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

29 Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth has made its home in this poverty."

39 Jesus said, "The Pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys of Knowledge and hidden them. They themselves have not entered, nor have they allowed to enter those who wish to. You, however, be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves."

44 Jesus said, "Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven."

48 Jesus said, "If two make peace with each other in this one house, they will say to the mountain, 'Move away,' and it will move away."

61 ...Jesus said to her, "Therefore I say, if he is undivided, he will be filled with light, but if he is divided, he will be filled with darkness."

This is one round of "Magic: the Gathering" I'm going to steer well clear of!

You reminded me of something.

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.
-- Gene Fowler

I know that you'll get there. Here's just a bit of my encouragement, in the trickle that remains of Slashlandia.

Myself, I am really more of a Paxil and "the aftermath" fan. Your personal writing is more detailed in a certain way. And I might be weird, but I like the way it invites the reader to vicariously share your circumstances.

Nobots is good. When I read these, I'm in the mind of "Bill, the Galactic Hero" and "HHGTTG". Actually, quite a bit of Harrison, really. Stainless Steel Rat, somehow.

Nobots is dominated by an invisible omniscient narrator, and that changes the quality of your style. What I see as the missing element from Paxil-style writing is the wish to "get to know" the characters. This includes the impression that they have lives and experience beyond the visible mechanics of their narrative actions.

I'm very glad you're making the effort, and improving your work from iterations. More than I am doing on that front. If you are not always pleased, know that just your doing this, pleases at least one other person.

Notice the timeline for Prism access to Apple?

Jobs had to croak, before the company betrayed it's service users, and handed them wholesale for illegal data-rape by an invasive, secret-police venture.

iOS needs to be able to resuscitate the dead corpse of Steve Jobs, and save us from the coming disaster - The Cook and Ives Show.

They did once call this "the Jesus Phone"... Oh, but for "Lo, he has risen..."

Before Apple allowed this.

Then it was Cook who opened up his cheeks...

It's called "imbalance of power".

You advocate equivalency, but it's a false tactic. It's like saying the cop was defending himself, pepperspraying a child in the eyes, after handcuffing him - because the child's cries and thrashing constitute "resisting arrest" and "threat of assault".

Keep backing the pigs. Someday, you'll see how those with no honor treat their friends and defenders. Then? It'll be too late.

BTW, Your handle is the same as my car... And one of John Lennon's.

What else do you call a country in outstanding violation of a half-dozen UN resolutions for more than thirty years, non-signatory to the NNPT, uses chemical weapons and torture on civilian non-combatants, and withholds land ownership, inheritance rights and full citizenship privileges to inhabitants, based on ethnicity?

It's like Wehrmacht on the Riviera.

They want their Gnome/KDE flame war back... :-)

This is a complete obfuscation and dereliction from your entire thread.

Again, you somehow evade logic and rhetorical conclusion - instead making this a canard about my level of concern and participation.

The validity of recognizing an injustice is NOT measured by the observer's resource and opportunity to assist.

This is the same false argumentation that invalidates criticism, when it is not accompanied by a solution. It is a position which pretends to stand on the high-ground. It is a pose, apparently removed from thorny ethical matters by honoring practicality - while implicating the critic of mere contrariness or outright bad faith.

Later on, you call this "flaming Israel". I suppose that's what you call examining the historical and moral circumstances.

Israel the least of Palestine's problems? It's to laugh! Hell, there's plenty of Israeli's who'll argue that one with you. They show up on mondoweiss.net, often enough.

Christ, I know the Mail, Telegraph and Express.
But? That's know different than NYT, the Times, Observer or Guardian. Differentiation is just which socioeconomic bracket they aim the stream of sewage at.

It was all over, when Guardian left Manchester, really. Now the most astute british commentary on world and domestic events come from comedians. Wait. I guess that may have always been so.

Still, seeing that the only people who got Woolrich right, and with any nuance, were Stephen Fry and... Russell Brand!?!

Yeah. an Orange-grove ghetto, in Tel Aviv.