“OneLook's reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word.” (via netbib)

You may use this as an associator. For example, what do the authors Borges and Traven have in common? Nothing but the Mississauga Blob plummeted into the backyard of a person called Traven Matchett. Do you know the connection between Borges and the blob?

Gordon Graham: The Case Against the Democratic State: An Essay in Cultural Criticism (Imprint Academic, 2002) reviewed by David Gordon. The reviewer exlains Grahams opinion, that in a modern democracy, your vote would not count. Because of the large number of voters in an election, an individual had not the remotest chance of turning the results in the direction he favors. Graham:

Imagine an election in a parliamentary constituency of 10,000 voters where 60% go to the polls and the outright winner(X) gets 52% of the vote. Suppose I voted for X. It is evident that my vote makes no difference. Had I not done so, she would have won anyway; 32,000 minus one still wins. Had I voted against her, this would make no difference either… But if this is true of my vote, it is true of everyone else's also. So it does not matter how anyone would have voted, the outcome would have been the same.
Democracy is if Arnold Schwarzenegger wins the election.

p. s. Irgendwie lässt mir diese Überlegung keine Ruhe. Das Paradox besteht darin, dass alle Staaten, in denen ich vorzugsweise leben möchte, Demokratien sind. Andererseits ist offensichtlich, dass mein Einfluss auf Entscheidungen in einer Demokratie mit mehr als, sagen wir, 100 Bürgern verschwindend gering ist. Ist es also der Fall, dass ich eben da gerne lebe, wo ich keinen Einfluss habe? Eher nicht. Jedenfalls erweckt das Geschwätz "unserer" (wer ist dieses wir?) gewählten Vertreter täglich neu Überdruss bis Übelkeit.

p. s. anarchy.org ist ein Oxymoron.

p. s. “Decisions affecting the society, then, must be made by the people as a whole, and not by any smaller subdivision (e.g. modern ‘representative democracy’)” (Wikipedia about Anarchism and democracy). But who is the people as a whole? At least it's not me, and it's nobody else. “The people as a whole” making decisions is not anarchy, is it?

Der New Scientist bespricht George Christos Buch Memory and Dreams: “He believes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) occurs when babies dream of not breathing.” Das ist unheimlich. Und scheint bei Erwachsenen nicht mehr zu funktionieren?

Da scheint tatsächlich jemand eine Schädelsammlungzu haben, die man im Netz besichtigen kann. Dahin bin ich über www.totentanz.de gelangt, eine Adresse, die offensichtlich dem Todeskult gewidmet ist. Makaber.