“The correlation between U.S. aid and human rights violations has long been noted by scholarship.” Just because Chomsky is a thinker who’s ideas are best considered at a length beyond that of a soundbite, doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to throw in a finely polished and cutting bit of snark as an aside. And that article the snark is nested in–that also bears reading.
Author: Mr. McLaren
Aside
“My miracle is that when I feel hungry I eat, and when I feel thirsty I drink.” Yup, that’s a hell of a punchline.
The Dismal Science vs The Invisible Hand: A Movie
One of the reasons I often find things I like in the Guardian is because where else would you find someone like Mark Weisbrot (the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and economics PhD) writing a review of something like Michael Moore’s new film, Capitalism: A Love Story. Regardless of what you think of Moore and his… Read more →
“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done”
I was pretty pleased last week to see the British PM get around to issuing an apology for their government’s treatment of Alan Turing. Being a computer geek, and a bit of a crypto amateur, the things done at Bletchley Park generally, and by Turing specifically (and not just during the war), are things of interest to me. Being a,… Read more →
Pirate Jenny
For vaguely Alan Moore reasons I was recently checking out some renditions of Threepenny Opera tunes, and I found this version of Pirate Jenny that out-creepies the Nina Simone and Ute Lemper versions that I was familiar with. I thought I’d share. Read more →
Fixing The Asides
Hey, did you notice the “aside” formatting is working again on that last post? You might remember my saying, way back when, that I had noticed that the upgrade to WP 2.8 had broken AsideShop, the plugin I used to do styling for my “aside” posts (Oh yeah, this is going to be some deep WP nerdery–run away!) and I… Read more →
Aside
I am not sure how to interpret the news that the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie will be based on a great novel by one of my favourite authors. I don’t want to be optimistic about the adaptation for obvious reasons. I guess I should just focus on the fact that Powers will get a well-deserved payday.
Space Porn
Well, the moving thing and some insane workload at work have kept me from posting enough here lately–and may continue to do so until after we actually move. However that doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped seeing things that fascinate, challenge, or enrage me, and when I get a chance I’m going to keep posting about them here. So let’s start… Read more →
Another major life moment
In addition to all that “moving to Ontario soon” drama outlined below, there’s a whole other life milestone that got passed today: my daughter went to school for the first time. We got up a little early this morning and had a pancake breakfast, and then we all went down to where Sarah would meet her school bus. She got… Read more →
The Official Announcement
OK, you’ve probably noticed that postings have been sparse around here for the last little while. There are a number of reasons, and I’ve been holding off talking about them until the ink was dry on the paperwork, but now we’re ready to “officially” announce a bunch of this stuff. First, I am pleased and delighted to announce that Dr.… Read more →
Holy Tesla, Batman
I’m still trying to keep up with the TED talks, and today’s is a cool one for anyone interested in either Tesla or the concept of broadcast power generally. To be fair this is a much shorter-range version of broadcast power than Tesla was after, but still… The presenter is the CEO of WiTricity, which is commercializing the technology, which… Read more →
SF Authors Say Smart Things: Stross on mercy
The subjects vary — crime and penal policy, healthcare, don’t get me started on foreign policy — but there is an ideological approach in America that is distinguished by one common characteristic: words and deeds utterly lacking in the quality of mercy. There is a cancer in the collective American soul — a mercy deficit that has in recent years… Read more →
I shall call her Dr. Wife
Yes, I think the title captures the news from Friday: Trish is now a Doctor of Philosophy. (She was assured that as a newly minted PhD she gets up to six months of people having to forgive her for being asinine about the doctor title–booking plane tickets with it, etc. I don’t know if she’ll take advantage of that, or… Read more →
Book Porn
Yesterday was a marvelous mail day at the McLaren household. Through a confluence of mail karma–or possibly because our mailman seems to be skipping a day whenever he gets bored with the route–I had several books arrive from several different publishers. This will consequently be one long post full of book porn. If you’re not interested in small presses and… Read more →
Newish Old Music
Over the last day or so, I’ve been on an MP3-ripping rampage–I think I’ve done about 120 CDs in the last day or two. I’ve got a goal to get the rest of the CDs I’ve never got around to ripping (about 1000 or so) digitized before the end of the month, so that I can box them up and… Read more →
