It’s the Thanksgiving long weekend in Canada, and I am too busy with my family to be blogging about Cheney’s latest fearmongering, the connections between private industry and counter-terrorism, excellent mockings of the crazy christian lobby, fine insults, or the lessons of Soviet history. Instead, I’m spending my time on stuff like this: (Yes, that is her first time riding.… Read more →
Author: Mr. McLaren
She has jeans?
I know what you’re thinking: that’s a bit “not safe for work”, isn’t it? Well, you can’t blame me on that one–I’ve got it on good authority that it’s fine. At least for Australians: Controversial Lee Jeans Ad Declared Acceptable by the Board In an astonishing development Lee Jeans’ controversial ‘Lolita’ advertisement campaign for spring-summer 2006, has been declared acceptable… Read more →
Signing Statements
So, once again Bush has declared himself above the authority of the legislative branch: Bush says he can edit security reports President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department’s reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists. In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated… Read more →
Recommended Listening: Absolute Power
This week’s listening material in the car has been the BBC Radio 4 series Absolute Power. The series stars Stephen Fry and John Bird as former BBC executives who lose their BBC jobs and start up a “government media relations” firm. The core conceit is that they take on “image relaunches” and media campaigns for things that are impossible to… Read more →
A Portrait of the Blogger As A (Very) Young Man.
My mom recently sent me some photographs from my childhood, and they are amusing the hell out of me–not least because having now made it through the first two years of parenthood the notion that I was once a baby has some more visceral meaning for me. Anyway, I present Mr. McLaren, age six weeks: And, the slightly less demure… Read more →
Man, Nightshade makes some pretty books
Nightshade has always published quality fiction, but I’ve got to say lately they have also been incredibly pretty physical objects. Let’s look at a couple of examples that have showed up here over the last few days. Take, for example, Liz Williams‘ new one, Demon And The City, which arrived today. It’s so pretty that it lifted me out of… Read more →
Still allowed in America… so far
Ananova – Police hunt farting dissident Police in Poland have launched a nationwide hunt for a man who farted loudly when asked what he thought of the president. Although, I suppose His Highness could just declare such activity a “purposeful and materially support of hostilities against the United States”. Read more →
Irony: Textbook definition.
Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere. We are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984,… Read more →
Mission Accomplished
I have been avoiding writing this post for a couple of days. I haven’t been this depressed since the last U.S. Presidential election, and I had to get away for a few days and not think about it. I’m still too angry and upset to write about this clearly, but I can quote a whole bunch of other people whose… Read more →
Thursday morning linkage
What was I saying about misusing the power of education? Man would I have done poorly at that school. This is a computer-generated image. I would have been fooled. Is there a Turing test equivalent for this kind of thing? The idea of Statler & Waldorf doing a Siskel and Ebert routine is pretty solid gold. Somehow they manage to… Read more →
Stop the continent, I want off.
Only 28% of Americans believe in evolution (and two-thirds of these believe evolution was “guided by God”). 53% are actually creationists. 80% of Americans expect to be called before God on Judgment Day to answer for their sins. 90% believe in heaven. 77% rate their chances of going to heaven as “excellent” or “good.” 83% of Americans believe that Jesus… Read more →
Bookish links of the day
Rick Kleffel has really been burning it up over at The Agony Column. There’s been some really top quality stuff there over the last couple of days, including: A lengthy interview with Naomi NovikI think I wanted her to sound like Patrick O’Brian or something. (mp3), A lengthy interview with Charles Stross…who does not sound “Scottish enough” to me. I… Read more →
Hanging Around The House 12: Updates & Unhung
And this will bring to a close (at least for now), the series of posts that try to capture the various pieces of art I have hanging around the house. It’s hard to believe that the first of these was posted around 18 months ago. Remember that these posts are made up of quick snapshots–these are hardly professional images, and… Read more →
Sunday Night
On Sunday night I was invited to join the aforementioned comic creators, the people from Strange Adventures who had worked the booth, and Toronto comic scene Svengali Christopher Butcher, for dinner at the Economy Shoe Shop. Much fun was had by all, and after we had all eaten (and drank) on Cal‘s tab, several of us ended up visiting a… Read more →
Sunday Afternoon
That’s the stack of books I took to the Word On The Street on Sunday to have signed, sketched, remarqued, or whatever the creators felt like doing. (Yes, I am that guy.) All the creators seemed friendly, and interested, and were in good moods. I was particularly impressed with how well several of them interacted with the younger children. I… Read more →
