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	<title>Notes from the Petting Zoo</title>
	<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays</link>
	<description>Smell my crunchy paradigm -- essays by Edward Martin III</description>
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		<title>The Simple Guide to Relationships or Why Love is Simpler Than You Think</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Introduction Welcome to my half-assed manifesto. It&#8217;s a bit of a map of how I got to where I am, which is a place I happen to like. There&#8217;s an extremely slim chance you might find something interesting in here, which is one of the reasons I&#8217;m posting it online. The other reason is that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1178</link>
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		<title>What You Can Do to Prevent Censorship</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Probably the best thing you can do to fight censorship is to send me a box of ten dollar bills. Well, twenties would be better, C-notes even more so. So the hundreds would be the best thing, but any money at all would be good. And I&#8217;ll keep saying what I want. Back to the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1176</link>
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		<title>Hey, jump for me!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I call it &#8220;tapping on the glass,&#8221; after the tendency people have to tap on the glass of an aquarium just to make the fish jump. If they can make the fish jump, that means they&#8217;re a &#8220;real&#8221; person. I&#8217;ve known a few glass-tappers, folks who make a noise in hopes of making other people [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1263</link>
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		<title>You travel where you look</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been thinking a lot lately about this quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: &#8220;Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward in the same direction.&#8221; I think it matters a great deal to enjoy deeply each others&#8217; company, when there is love, but I&#8217;m starting [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1260</link>
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		<title>Let&#8217;s just agree you&#8217;re a dick.</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the tricky things about &#8220;agreeing to disagree&#8221; is that it is, at its heart, an agreement, and we&#8217;re already talking about people who clearly have trouble agreeing on things trying to make that agreement. There are so many things easier to agree on that are probably more relevant! Back to the Master List [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1258</link>
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		<title>&#8216;Cause ordinary anger is &#8220;lame.&#8221;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[There is no guilt in expressing righteous anger, so for those of us who thrive on the high of anger (and I&#8217;ll make no bones about it &#8212; it&#8217;s a helluva ride!), it&#8217;s worth the effort to arrange for it to be &#8220;justified,&#8221; so it can properly felt, enjoyed, and delivered. One may also make [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1256</link>
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		<title>They&#8217;re all in the same disguise</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I think, until an openly atheistic President is elected, I will view with great suspicion any claims a candidate makes about their religious views. Although I&#8217;d have to admire the brass of anyone campaigning who claims to be a Satanist. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1254</link>
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		<title>&#8230;or, you could just grow up.</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If a fireman prevents you from lighting fires in your living room, and instead, you light fires in your garage and detonate your own car&#8217;s gas tank, it makes no sense to blame the fireman for being so &#8220;restrictive.&#8221; You&#8217;re missing the point. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1252</link>
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		<title>It&#8217;s a law</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Given the opportunity, n number of people will be 2^n times as incompetent as one person. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1250</link>
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		<title>&#8220;I&#8217;m just a bill&#8230;&#8221;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Sometimes, you pass a law because the majority want it that way and you need to make the minority do something they don&#8217;t want to do. Other times, you pass a law because it&#8217;s the right thing to do and you need to make the majority do something they don&#8217;t want to do. Finally, you [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1248</link>
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		<title>Haunted cars</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m never quite sure what to think about Mobile Memorials, that is, cars with memorial messages inscribed on them. Do people keep the windows when they sell the car? If the car gets wrecked, does the soul get transferred to the junkyard? If you buy such a car, are you obligated to continue advertising? Back [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1246</link>
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		<title>What about Kaypro?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve pretty much concluded that life is a lot like a Linux box in that you&#8217;re always fiddling with this part or that part, changing things, swapping out code here and there, tuning, etc. If you want a Mac-flavored life, it&#8217;s gonna cost a lot to maintain. If you want a Windows-flavored life, there&#8217;ll be [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1244</link>
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		<title>A barrel of fun!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You&#8217;ll learn more by looking to see where the gun is pointed than by listening to the shooter tell you how great their aim is. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1242</link>
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		<title>Mmm, delicious!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Unless there are farms specifically for raising rabbits with luxurious multiple feet, one of our most ubiquitous good luck charms is actually agricultural waste. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1240</link>
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		<title>Cat vs. Cloud</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Before you go and plan to do all your work &#8220;in the cloud,&#8221; you had best be making sure the cat can&#8217;t pull the router&#8217;s power supply out of the wall. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1238</link>
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		<title>I predict failure with near-perfect accuracy!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m leery of accepting the accuracy and precision of anyone engaging in any sort of prophecy until I&#8217;ve seen that they&#8217;ve won at least two PowerBall lotteries. You might want to think about that one, too. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1236</link>
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		<title>&#8220;Because only an evil GENIUS&#8230;&#8221;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The assumption that the only people who can trick us must be evil super-geniuses is a roundabout way of declaring that we think of ourselves as geniuses, too. Most people are ordinary and have ordinary levels of gullibility. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1234</link>
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		<title>That would be the &#8220;lower ground.&#8221;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Once you’re grumbling, bragging, or expecting reciprocation about having taken the “higher ground,” you’ve left the higher ground. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1232</link>
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		<title>Make a wish</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I sense there are a few of those &#8220;Make a Wish&#8221; wishes we never actually hear about, such as the ones involving Alyson Hannigan and maple syrup. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1229</link>
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		<title>Where&#8217;s the Teacups movie?!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It suddenly occurred to me yesterday &#8212; all you Pirates of the Carribean fans are fans of a Disney ride. I mean, that&#8217;s like being a fan of Space Mountain or the Teacups. Except, well, with rum. But still. Disney. Back to the Master List of Essays]]></description>
		<link>http://www.petting-zoo.org/Essays/?p=1227</link>
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