It is unreasonable how much of an optimistic lift this has given me: U.S. house majority leader DeLay indicted, steps down temporarily – Wikinews U.S House of Representatives majority leader Tom DeLay was indicted today by a Travis County Texas grand jury on conspiracy charges. DeLay announced that he will step down temporarily from his leadership position. … The Wikinews… Read more →
Year: 2005
Tonight’s thought
What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer. —Bertrand Russell Read more →
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
If you read the preceding post and thought I was being too worked up about a bunch of people being dumb, I refer you to the The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, specifically the Fourth law: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under… Read more →
As I suspected
Track 14 Yesterday’s Times brings an article describing of a new study looking at how the degree to which a society is religious affects the moral and ethical foundations of a society. The results are no surprise to me. The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing… Read more →
Even More On Evolution
The Reuters story on the PA (here it is at Yahoo) case contains these depressing facts. New evolution spat in U.S. schools goes to court At least 31 states are taking steps to teach alternatives to evolution. A CBS poll last November found 65 percent of Americans favor teaching creationism as well as evolution while 37 percent want creationism taught… Read more →
War is Bad, Peace is Good…
…and Harlan Ellison is, well, Harlan. Anyone who knows anything about science fiction knows about Harlan, up to and including the fact that he once kind of took out a hit on an editor of his (well, actually a comptroller) over cigarette ads (it’s a funny story when he tells it) Apparently the Penny Arcade guys, didn’t know about Harlan. Read more →
Expanding My Vocabulary
I love the idea of concepts that other languages posses words for, which my native language does not. The kinds of things you can express in a language tells you something about the way native speakers of that language see the world–this can reveal concepts to you that you previously literally could not think about (or at least not think… Read more →
Halliburton Gets Contract
OK, I was bored of them for a while, but I do still occasionally love the guys at The Onion: Halliburton Gets Contract To Pry Gold Fillings From New Orleans Corpses’ Teeth It’s funny because… Read more →
Darwin has a posse
OK, I can’t believe I’m writing about this stuff again (put “evolution” in the search box and you’ll get lots of other posts with related rants), and we’re still in the 21st century. Why do so many people just want to throw their hands up and give up on trying to understand the world… ‘Intelligent design’ taken to court Eighty… Read more →
Bush appointed dictator
Okay, so maybe that’s a bit hyperbolic, he’s not quite Sulla yet (and I doubt he will be returning his powers to the more general government at the end of his term!), but apparently the courts have decided (again) that he has the power to abrogate the Constitution more or less at his whim, and hold American citizens without habeaus… Read more →
Margaritas ante porcos
I am happy to report I have just pre-ordered my copy of the Subterranean Press limited edition of Tim Powers‘ new book. (Not the lettered one–I’m a rabid Powers fanboy, but not to the tune of $600US. Maybe if they double my salary.) Ordering of the book by the general public (I am so a laminate, sweetie) will open soon,… Read more →
BOOM – Server Crash!
Well, my ISP had a server crash yesterday, which anyone trying to access the blog surely noticed. Part of the crash recovery involved restoring from their last backup, which was apparently long enough ago that all my September posts are lost. Fortunately, I have local copies of the postings in my RSS reader (yes, I subscribe to my own blog–for… Read more →
Just for Al.
This post is really just for my old pal the Classics Phd, since she’s probably the only person I know (possibly excepting Chris the Sub Wizard) who could actually read it: Read more →
Tuesday Miscellany
Instead of actual content, a placeholder, in the form of happy and sad links from around cyberspace. Part of the reason I don’t have time for real entries today is that tonight is poker night, and the first link I’m bringing you is something that would be a definite hit with the poker fools–it’s kind of like alcoholic Di Di… Read more →
About Movies: DVD Wishlist
A few years ago, around the time I was first considering getting a DVD player (I was a very late adopter of this technology, unlike most things) I commented to some friends that there were 7 movies that really would want to get DVDs of that I suspected would never be released on DVD. These weren’t my absolute favourite movies… Read more →
