So, did you see the things emanating from the new Pope this week? Wednesday he officially declared that there is no such thing as a Protestant “church”, and that at best Protestants can be “ecclesial communities”. Apparently this is based on his analysis that “because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood”, Protestant organizations had not “preserved the genuine and… Read more →
Year: 2007
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, Orqwith, and the Codex Seraphinianus
(This post was, in large part, made elsewhere first, but I figure that since I went to the effort to dig up the links, etc, that I might as well put it up here also. If you’ve already seen this, feel free to move along.) That’s the cover to the 1983 English edition of Jorge Luis Borges‘ short story Tlön,… Read more →
They’ll probably charge him with terrorism
Finally, finally, a public servant is ready to stand up and say what everyone not overdosing on the koolaid knows: Bush justice is a national disgrace As a longtime attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, I can honestly say that I have never been as ashamed of the department and government that I serve as I am at this… Read more →
Q.O.T.D.
“I pretty much started believing they’ll try anything they can get away with once it was confirmed that they really have instituted a series of secret prisons around the world and that they reserve the right to kidnap anyone on the planet, hold them forever without trial, and torture them to death.” Read more →
A really fun way to waste some time.
Have you seen the Skeptic’s Dictionary site? It bills itself as “A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions”, but I think it should really be labeled with a warning about the potential for losing quite a bit of time browsing around the amusing entries. The entry on true-believer syndrome may shed some light on those people who… Read more →
An Interesting Meme
I mostly avoid these, but I seem to have a weakness for the questions Jonathan Carroll asks, as with at least one lengthy previous post, and these ones that got to me today. 1. Describe three meals from your past (preferably breakfast, lunch and dinner) that you would like to have again and why. For me this has to be… Read more →
Proving Once Again That The Real World Is At Least As Creative As Fiction…
Man, that’s one hell of an obituary: Count Gottfried von Bismarck Count Gottfried von Bismarck, who was found dead on Monday aged 44, was a louche German aristocrat with a multi-faceted history as a pleasure-seeking heroin addict, hell-raising alcoholic, flamboyant waster and a reckless and extravagant host of homosexual orgies. The great-great-grandson of Prince Otto, Germany’s Iron Chancellor and architect… Read more →
The Supremes (US Version)
So, I’ve been reading a lot of “only sixteen months to go” talk about Bush, and a lot of conversation about the Democrats playing a “long game” by letting him have enough rope to hang himself and the Republicans with him, etc. However, I think that this notion that however bad it gets, it will all be over by November… Read more →
Taxes and The Rich
When someone who is at the poor end of the wealth spectrum (i.e. the vast majority of people in the world) make statements about income disparity, class inequality, or the basic unfairness of a nation’s infrastructure, even if those statements are objectively and factually true, they can easily be at least somewhat deflected by observing that those statements line up… Read more →
Scooter
Like everyone who’s even vaguely awake in the “Western” world I’ve seen dozens of stories already about Bush’s commuting of Libby’s sentence. Like everyone who’s even vaguely awake, I see this for what it is. As I read in the NYT: “in this case, Mr. Bush did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like… Read more →
Separation of Church And State
Well, we already knew there was no such thing as Rule of Law anymore, so why not toss that whole No State Religion thing out as well? Man, I already mocked Alabama this week–I’m out of punchlines. Here: State of Alabama – Office of the Governor Bob Riley – Press Releases MONTGOMERY – Governor Bob Riley is encouraging Alabamians to… Read more →
How I Welcomed Canada Day
Shortly after the clock ticked over into Canada Day last night, I was the proud recipient of this: In addition to that lovely chunk of acrylicCourtesy of the new laser engraver at R & M Rubber Stamp, a.k.a “the business Tiger owns”. and the first place finish prizeWhich, were we playing for cash would have been 50% of the tournament… Read more →
This one’s just for me
OK, maybe also for George. I have a Pavlovian reaction to this music, in almost every variation. My wife has an equally strong, but entirely opposite, reaction. Read more →
A Wednesday Miscellany
For some reason I’ve been on a things-in-space-with-cool-pictures kick this week, so why stop now? Here’s a picture of the aurora australis, as seen from Antarctica: That’s one of two images from a post at Canadian hard-SF author Peter Watts‘ blog. Read the post for a higher resolution version, another picture, and a very disturbing mental image. Of course there… Read more →
I expected nothing less
This tiny blog cliche via the R-rated Justine and just-as-risque-as-me Gwenda. The words used to determine this rating CRACK ME UP. For the record they are: “dead”, “drugs”, “death”, “sex”, and “dangerous”. Running the rating routine on various monthly archives of this site generates wildly varying results. Apparently I am remarkably inconsistent in my usage of the “adult” keywords. Heh. Read more →
