(Note: This is pretending to be about politics, but is really about MY WIFE and MY DAUGHTER being in the newspaper. So, if you don’t care about the political stuff, keep reading until you get to that part!) I know I go off a lot on American politics here, way more than I do about the homegrown kind, and there’s… Read more →
Author: Mr. McLaren
More head-shaking… but with an optimistic ending
Well, the news today on the Feingold thing is pretty amusing, in a “laugh so I don’t cry” way. Democrats are literally scampering for cover, and avoiding the question, in an attempt to avoid upsetting people. I know it’s been said almost to death, but they are never going to amount to anything until they stand for something. Here’s snippets… Read more →
Future generations will shake their heads…
That Ted Rall, he’s such a kidder. Oh. Wait. It appears he’s not, and we’re really in that retroactive legalization period. From the NYT, last week: Moving to tamp down Democratic calls for an investigation of the administration’s domestic eavesdropping program, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that they had reached agreement with the White House on proposed… Read more →
QOTD
From a friend, visiting the national capital: “so many bureaucrats, so little fire” Read more →
Countering errant nonsense
As a kind of response to the recent heart-breaking polls, I present a classic article from Scientific American, 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense, which in turn presents 15 common anti-evolution arguments and then proceeds to answer and refute each one. Here’s the list of “common arguments” that are answered: Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or… Read more →
Grabbing viral video
Have you ever been watching a video on Google Video, or YouTube, or somewhere and wanted to snag yourself a copy of the video? Maybe you want it because you want watch it again later and don’t want to lose the URL. Maybe you want to convert it to some other video format for another use. Maybe you want to… Read more →
Impeachment Forum
Remember that post about the Lapham’s essay on impeachment, and the report, etc.? If you were interested in that, you should see SixThreeFive.com, which tells you how to do your bit for impeachment. It also hosts an audio and video that you can dowload of the recent Harper’s Forum on the subject of impeachment. The forum was entitled “Is There… Read more →
CBN: Orphan shank
(“Mr. X” is an alias, since I don’t actually have permission from the other party to identify him. If you want to be identified, you can speak up in the comments.) [10:18] “Doc” McLaren: Orphans are a wise investment in a turbulent economy. [10:18] Mr. X: Yeah, they give you a lot of options [10:19] “Doc” McLaren: The irony is… Read more →
Book Notes: Agony Column
OK, time to do some initial clean up on my “To Blog” folder. The first thing on the menu is a set of pointers to Agony Column content, to thin out the “Books” subfolder. I’ve mentioned before that Rick Kleffel might be the reviewer who most constantly lines up with my eclecticism, and looking at my “To Blog” folder I… Read more →
Spend nine minutes with Alan Moore
He comes off a bit pretentious, and probably won’t get any new readers from this, but since I was already fully converted it’s very interesting to me. Read more →
Roach’s Rib Secrets
I don’t even really like ribs, but this (lengthy) post from my pal Roach makes me both hungry (and thirsty–I want a patio day now!): TwoBlog » Let the Ribfests begin! I’ve been cooking Ribs for several years now and I must say that I am no slouch. I can state with confidence that every person who has tasted ”Ribs… Read more →
You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me!
Gallup: More Than Half of Americans Reject Evolution, Back Bible A Gallup report released today reveals that more than half of all Americans, rejecting evolution theory and scientific evidence, agree with the statement, “God created man exactly how Bible describes it.” Another 31% says that man did evolve, but “God guided.” Only 12% back evolution and say “God had no… Read more →
Things to listen to
Not music this time, but a bunch of things you can slap in your MP3 player and use to fill up some dead time. I’m going to assume you know what a podcast is, and have software to harvest them. (I use Doppler.) Let’s start with academics. Professor Courtney Brown, of the Political Science department at Emory University in Georgia… Read more →
An idiot child with a gun
And you wonder why the rest of the world is both terrified of you and condescending to you? Damn. Read more →
SF Authors say smart things: Scalzi on the Judiciary
SF author John Scalzi is doing “reader request week” over at his popular blog Whatever, an annual event where he posts in response to reader requests (duh!). Today’s post is on the question of “activist” judges, and Scalzi’s response is great. I’ve noticed that my political opinions and Scalzi’s have some overlap but they certainly aren’t congruent; this piece is… Read more →
