I have had to distance myself a little from U.S. politics, just to keep my sanity. Every time I think the administration has reached it’s nadir, they find ways to keep digging. So, now Condi is the Secretary of State, and with almost no real resistance. Sigh. At least Senator Dodd called her out a bit. (You can see the… Read more →
Year: 2005
More book news
Two other book pieces caught my eye recently. First was another Guardian piece (I do love their book coverage), this time an extract from the new Haruki Murakami novel Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing direction. You change direction, but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play… Read more →
Alan Moore
Look, Alan Moore is a genius. Hands down, he is the best writer who has ever worked for comics. Just From Hell, or V for Vendetta (my personal favourite), alone would make that first statement true, without looking at anything else. It’s not just comics though. His novel Voice Of The Fire is challenging, and rewarding. And the series of… Read more →
Not dead yet
I am not dead yet, but it’s been a week of three different blizzards, and a lot of work. Also, my wife turned 30 yesterday, which also took some time. 🙂 Regular posting to resume shortly. Read more →
Old habits die hard
Yanking still more (months old) content from the Guardian, is a piece on Shane McGowan. Shane MacGowan doesn’t remember much about leaving the Pogues, except this: “I was glad to get out alive.” The piece is a nice combination of “tales of excess” and “he’s not really like that”, which paints a bit of a picture. (Actually in the article… Read more →
Institutional Inertia
When Trish pointed out to me that a Spanish Cardinal had made a statement substantially changing the policy on condoms of the Catholic Church in Spain, I was momentarily shocked, and then cynical. Here’s a bit of the USA Today article on it (I don’t have a link handy for a more adult news source, but hit Google yourself if… Read more →
Cool content, bad format
So, I’ve been digging around on the “cult” section of the BBC’s website, and I’ve been finding all kinds of great stuff there. Today’s happy discovery is that they have a bunch of Sherlock Holmes stories up, written by some great British SF (and SF-ish) writers, including Jon Courtenay Grimwood (who I talked about earlier) and Paul Cornell (who wrote… Read more →
An important resource for travellers
So, in the course of confirming today that dans les vignes du Seigneur meant what I thought it meant (it does), I found The Alternative Dictionaries, which describes itself as ‘ a collection of various forms of “bad language” from many languages.’ So, if you ever needed to know how that in Hungarian the colloquial form of ‘go to hell’… Read more →
Emptying the hump of hate, Part II
I wanted to rant a bit about the grotesque spectacle of the Bush’s inauguration celebrations, but Dan Gilmour beat me to it: The spectacle of George W. Bush and his friends celebrating (Reuters) his election so expensively this week is one of those revealing moments in history. The announced spending of $40 million just on the parties is undoubtedly less… Read more →
Halifax: Worse Than Death?
Apparently George Washington thought so, as a 229 year-old letter which is about to be auctioned proves: In the four-page letter dated May 9, 1776, he said the Loyalists detested their time in Halifax and preferred to die than to stay in the city. Fortunately, the city has improved greatly since the old days. Why, just ask the Barenaked Ladies.… Read more →
Banjos playing through the broken glass
OK, time to unload some stuff from the hump of hate. Remember when I was openly mocking Alabama earlier? Well, they are trying to make me angrier: Roy Moore choice of GOP voters. Roy Moore’s defiance of a court order cost him the state’s highest judicial office. But his fame as the Ten Commandments judge could make the former Supreme… Read more →
Weird spam attack
Well, the blog has been getting a ton of weird spam lately. I say “weird” because, unlike the normal comment spam, these posts have no links in their bodies, nor are the posters entering a URI to some casino or “pharmacy”. Instead they are anonymous comments that have no linkage at all, and contain what are clearly machine generated compliments… Read more →
5500!
According to an article in the Telegraph (which I got via Daily Kos), there have been 5500 desertions from the US military around the Iraq War. The implication of the article is that these deserters have come to Canada. How have I not heard of this, if it’s true? The media has covered a couple of high profile cases, but… Read more →
Another small glimpse of hope
You may recall quite a lot of earlier discussion here (start here and follow links backwards for other posts) about Cobb Country, GA, and their “evolution is just a theory” sticker on textbooks. Well, the case has been settled in federal court, and with a result that gives me another small bit of hope. Here’s a bit of the judge’s… Read more →
You mean they didn’t find any?
I was going to comment on this CNN article, but I think Brian Wood has said everything I was going to say, and probably more succinctly at his LJ: wtf? U.S. ends search for WMD in Iraq “The search ended almost two years after President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, citing concerns that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of… Read more →
