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A wooden leg full of boredom
As I listened to election coverage last night, I got as bored as a peg-legged pirate at a podiatrists' convention. While I'm not entirely sure what Long John Silver would think of that metaphor, I'm relatively certain of one thing–when it comes to...Welcome to Argleton, which doesn't exist
How strange to find life imitating Philip K. Dick in such a precise fashion. The town of Argleton, England exists only on Google Maps, and, just exactly like PKD's protagonist in the story "The Commuter" going to find a non-place, someone goes to find...On Being the Right Size
I’m several days into Leslea Newman’s 30 poems in 30 days challenge. I’m finding it oddly easy to generate lines every day, but I am quite curious to see if, 30 days from now, they’ll prove to be anything other than clever mash-ups of words. It...The march of socialism
So there was a Democratic pickup in the House, in a district which hasn't been Democratic since the Civil War, last Tuesday. In California, a liberal Democrat replaced a more conservative Democrat in a House district. And over the weekend, the House health care...A little farther down the line
I've spent plenty of time chugging out that cool Johnny Cash train beat on the big red rockabilly guitar I souped up. And it's because, like many an American musician and non-musician alike, I've found Cash to be one of the ultimate purveyors of a wide...Not so Swift
I'm not a fan of modern country (give me Hank Williams and Bob Wills, thanks) or of television, but last night I caught the opening of the Country Music Awards. Taylor Swift is certainly a pop star worthy of more respect than usual for maintaining her personal...What the conservative said…
I find it intriguing (and pleasant) when I agree so wholeheartedly with a diehard conservative. (I find, however, that I often agree with old-school conservatives, just not "neo-conservatives.") There isn't a word of this blog entry by Daniel Larison,...Ilk alert!
Warning: the endangered ilk has returned to its habitat. Just snapped a pic in my back yard: Also worthy of note–a wicked conspiracy gets unmasked near the end of our current commentary. One about which we should all be informed, involving jihadis, purity of...Chuck E. Cheese, fighting terrorism one bouncy house at a time
Sarah Palin is still crazy. I know that's not news, but it sure is infotainment. I hate to feed her terrifying ego, but I'm already over the event horizon: on Hannity's show, she said she already knows that the Fort Hood shooter was a terrorist. (Well, he...The Tunnel Bar: haunted by a scary coat?
Call me a skeptic, but I find reports of ghosts to be immediately suspect. I can believe that something causes the phenomenon of "seeing ghosts," I'm simply not convinced that has to be something supernatural. Imagine telling someone in 1850 that one day...A little Hellmouth for you
A really cool band whose second album just arrived at our offices–Hoots & Hellmouth. Sort of bluegrass-y, but with healthy doses of about 18 other things if you listen to a few songs. They're coming to town soon, and here's a video for your...Tora Bora, plasma deodorant and Stonehenge
There's interesting cancer news today–how about nanoparticles that travel to a tumor, get inside cancer cells and basically tear them up? Seems like a flanking maneuver with a lot of promise.It does, however, raise an interesting question in light of the...Going old-school
Remember conservatism before all the crazy? Little Green Footballs' Charles Johnson, a rightward key player in the documents controversy regarding Bush's National Guard service that got Dan Rather fired, has thrown down the gauntlet. He's done some...A codebreaking near-miracle
You know, I was planning on decoding the Voynich Manuscript this weekend. I guess I won't have to now. Just a little something entertaining for a Friday: The Voynich Manuscript, a strangely encoded Renaissance-era herbarium of sorts, has been unsuccessfully...Off to the Straits of Bosporus with ye
Just got a telephone call from Istanbul, so I'm away to the Aegean for a few days. Well, if by Aegean you mean what the crafters of particularly ugly words have termed a "staycation."I may check in a time or two, but may everyone (even our naysaying...A Ten Gallon award
We've had a Wicker Man before, but the comment section below clearly occasions a new award: BACK FROM BOSPORUSTurns out it was a wrong number from Istanbul–just some dude wondering if the special was still on with the two shirts for the price of one...Trying to care in the Age of Lieberman
Come back from vacation, and the place goes crazy. One can only answer the furor of internet trolls with silence or silliness, and the silliness at least can be amusing (see last post for a wild ride). More on that later, but in the meantime, here's some of that...Maybe it's time for WIlliam Jennings Bryan?
Thom Hartmann certainly seems correct that there is a lot of anger on left and right, but we've grown so accustomed to the sniping between left and right that we've almost not noticed that there is a common enemy. (Maybe try up and down instead?) Hartmann: The...The vodka conundrum
Must be something in the zeitgeist about this whole corporate manipulation as enemy thing. Someone identifying as "the enemy" posted yesterday (at DailyKos) a truly fascinating take on the subject of who really controls opinion in America. I can't say I...And now a soupy conundrum
Eat this, critics… Today I'm writing next issue's food piece. A question for further contemplation by any who care to weigh in on matters beyond liberal/conservative mortar fire–upon browsing the cookbook my mother gave me from First Baptist Church...The Exhausting Decade
How were the Aughts for you? Seems like most folks think they were pretty much crap. At least that's the conclusion of an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. I'm personally quite glad to see them gone, for reasons political and otherwise. Some numbers: According to...Christmas gnar!
Christmas Eve, and the bad mojo still flies. I have blogged for three years and a couple of weeks now, and found it quite an intriguing experience, on the one hand an endless invitation to participate in a bone-stupid fracas that pretends to be debate, and on the...I hope he's well-grounded
How do you spell "holy shimoly"? Because this is cool on about 15 levels simultaneously: By implanting an electrode into the brain of a person with locked-in syndrome, scientists have demonstrated how to wirelessly transmit neural signals to a speech...Somewhere in Texas
Sometimes chatting with friends at the close of a decade brings up the craziest snippets of the past. Like the fact that here I am blogging under a big hat in 2009, and somewhere in Texas–probably stuffed in a closet between an Alice Cooper Slurpee cup (not a...Maybe Cheney needs his vacuum tubes serviced again
The current handling of the accused in the attempted airline bombing is turning out to be an interesting test case for how the Obama administration will deal with terrorist suspects, and for how the GOP will respond. The Brits are a prime example of the success of...Arts, liberal
From a 2008 New York Times Book Review piece: “I don’t review books very often,” [Richard Russo] said in an e-mail message, “which is odd because I love to talk about them. The problem is that I don’t have much interest in discussing...Darwin's enchiladas
My fellow Texans have an unusual influence on your kids' textbooks, it turns out. If Texans could do this with food, we'd really be getting somewhere–you know, force enchiladas Suizas onto the menu at fancy New York French restaurants just to curl the...The Lost Alpaca civilization?
Satellite technology turns up an honest-to-goodness lost civilization in the Amazon region: "This hitherto unknown people constructed earthworks of precise geometric plan connected by straight orthogonal roads. The 'geoglyph culture' stretches over a...Draconian Troll Hammer to the rescue
Around these here parts, we often have an entertaining comment section. It's got it all: pure insult, straw man arguments, ad hominem arguments, nonsense, insight, comedy, unintentional comedy, heck, even poetry sometimes. Personally, I see the whole thing as...Airport security: not designed to detect plastic explosives
An expert on airport security offers an interesting take on the Christmas Day bomber: With all the talk about the failure of airport security to detect the PETN that the Christmas bomber sewed into his underwear — and to think I've been using the phrase...A Scanner Darkly
When it comes right down to it, if you place me in a line of strangers to walk through one of those weirdly lit passages to an airliner, likewise full of a hundred or more strangers of unknown mentality and motivation, I sweat. There are many things I would rather do,...Odds and Ends
Herewith, a few cool things clogging the Intertoobz, rotorooted for your edification.First: Would you like a complete (120 hours) video introduction to modern physics from a Stanford professor? How about for free? It's the sort of thing that (all too literally)...The chair's chair
I just interviewed Northampton poet James Haug about his most recent book. He is an exceptional poet. Here's one of Haug's poems for your enjoyment (more at this link): GARDNER EXCHANGEIn a field I was overtaken by a conviction that another field lay just...Runnin' with the Devil
Why does Pat Robertson show up every time there's a disaster to tell people why he thinks it happened? It's like he's a compulsive nut who wants to make sure everyone thinks Christianity equals insanity. This time, Haiti was hit by an earthquake for the...What would Woody Allen do?
The best take I've seen on tomorrow's special election is below, quoted from an email (forwarded to me by theater critic Chris Rohmann) penned by Peter Vickery. I am not a Green Party member nor do I share every one of Vickery's priorities–for me the...This week on The Invertebrates: Oops, I Did It Again
The narrative about yesterday's election in the mainstream press is likely (who knows–maybe they'll surprise us yet) to be the timeworn critique of Democrats that always surfaces–they aren't being conservative enough. It is a remarkable thing...The Lice of Main Street
Every time I run into an Objectivist, I get the urge to back up and run into them again. An urge, paradoxically, that Ayn Rand would likely approve of. Rand's philosophy is pretty much the opposite of the parts of Christianity that I value most from my own very...Quit yr damn cryin'!: a post-election RANT
Get over it. All this doom and gloom and whining and moaning I’ve heard last night and today in the bar, in the café, on MSNBC, NPR, WHMP, just PATHETIC. One badly-run campaign, one lost senate seat, one successful fit of...This Congress brought to you by Wal-Mart
Oh boy! There's yet worse news than the absurdist story of Democratic crybaby-ism and disintegration. Here's some party-trumping gloom–today the Supreme Court appears to have turned over the government to the highest bidder in a real and direct way. This...Sympathy for “Some”
My favorite new quote:"For too long, some in this country have been deprived of full participation in the political process," [Republican Senator Mitch] McConnell said. "With today’s monumental decision, the Supreme Court took an important step in...Slime Molds mimic Tokyo
I'm not sure what this means, but I'm pretty much inclined to think it somehow means we're in for it, ala one of those '50s sci-fi movies with bullet bras and scary laboratories.So, until tomorrow then.It's Hard Out Here for a GOPimp
State of Union: windy, with chance of rhetoric.I think Bob Herbert in the New York Times nails the tenor of tonight's big speech by Obama. And, remarkably, it certainly seems there's a lot of unanimity on far left and far right about the opinion Herbert's...Magritte at the Meet 'n' Greet
My favorite headline of the day: Ceci N’Est Pas Un Terrorist It does bear asking–when are militants who, according to the indictment, planned to kill a cop, then kill more cops at the funeral using weapons of mass destruction not terrorists? Would they be...Take Me Back to Tulsa
Howard Zinn being optimistic–I hope he was correct: So what I'm saying is there is a hard core of Americans whose nationalism, whose loyalty to the establishment is so engraved, who find a way of rationalizing whatever they see. They find a way of...Relax: No Black Holes!
The results of my experiment (see last post) are in: my neighbor got his mail yesterday, just as I said he would. Ergo, he is a dillhole. Also, I made it rain. Other leading scientists have made news with their experimentation today. Over in one of my favorite places,...Into the Hornet's Nest
Obama is often a frustrating figure, embracing policies put into place by his predecessor and refusing to take strong stands for civil liberty. But I have to hand it to him for one thing–walking directly into the Republicans' camp and taking questions. That...So what now?
Glenn Greenwald explains how Obama is, at his worst, as bad as Bush: While torture and aggressive war may have been the most serious crimes which the Bush administration committed, its warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens was its clearest and most undeniable...The Word Doctors (take two and don't call back) and Calvin and Hobbes
The Republicrat struggle, the ongoing tempest that has consumed our system of governance, has, it seems to me, two main escape valves. One is what Obama just did, trying to engage both parties–although I'm sure as we speak, the Republicans he spoke to are...Wisecracking Robots and the Kitchen of the Future
Cinematic Titanic is the new incarnation of Mystery Science Theater 3000, that very fine convergence of sarcasm, bad movies and robot puppets. I just had the pleasure of interviewing Joel Hodgson, who invented the show. In knocking around the Internet Archives in...The boring reliability of not-torture
While the usual folks are going apoplectic about the lack of testosterone-boosting torture of the Christmas Day airline bomber, it turns out the old-school, non-medieval approach is apparently working out extremely well. From the New York Times: “With the...Ogg my Vorbis
I should have known. Let yourself be pulled into watching an actual network television show (although they seem to be calling them television “events” now, which gives drooling in front of the screen a whole new sheen of excitement to enjoy as you reach...A modest truth
How about a refreshingly adult view of the political situation? Lawrence Lessig pretty much nails it, as far as I'm concerned. From an article that's well worth your time in The Nation: …Obama once spoke for the anger that has now boiled over in even the...Boy, Dick Cheney's really gone downhill
Lose the presidential gig, and things really go south. The above-pictured fellow is accused of putting pipe bombs in mailboxes because he’s angry at the government. (So no, it’s not Dick Cheney, but nobody’s seen them both at the same time, either.)...What we did to Binyam Mohamed
Bush and then Obama threatened our closest ally with the withholding of intelligence information regarding terrorism if the U.K. released the following paragraphs about what happened to Binyam Mohamed in Guantanamo. What I find most disturbing about such things is the...Wild and crazy guys
Saith the Washington Post: Anger over the health-care overhaul has led to a nearly threefold increase in recent months in the number of serious threats against members of Congress, federal law enforcement officials said. The lawmakers reported 42 threats in the first...Very small rocks, great gravy
When Al Gore intoned "bridge to the 21st century," he was very wrong. Thanks in part to the religious cartoon of fundamentalism and to the opportunism of opinion manipulators, we appear to be busily building a bridge to the 12th century. Yep, we've got...My Window Faces the South
Lots of talk about the role of the South in the GOP is bubbling up. Joe Conason: Anyone who has wondered where the Republicans would take America if they regain control of Congress and the White House could learn much from what has been happening lately in Virginia...Science does not equal belief
It's probably not surprising that the last post lit a fuse. But there are some bigger, non-political questions behind my mocking of a Fox News commenter's declaration that big snows in the South have destroyed global warming claims. His claim brings to mind...Congress=Wall Street?
Well, this isn’t emblematic or anything: From anonymous midlevel workers to former House and Senate majority leaders, more than 125 former Congressional aides and lawmakers are now working for financial firms as part of a multibillion-dollar effort to shape, and...E-Edition
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