Entries from January 2009
Heck of a Job, Barry
The Anchoress – Kentucky: No Power, No FEMA In case next-door Mississippi during Katrina weren’t proof enough, more evidence that it’s no big deal when disasters strike Republicans.
Categories: Science and Nature
Hug Your Apostrophes Tonight When They Go To Bed, And Tell Them You Love Them
The Telegraph – Theyve gone nut’s Telegraph View: Birmingham City Council should reinstate the apostrophe. Birmingham City council has decided that its road signs and place names should no longer have apostrophes because they cause confusion to those who do not understand how they should be used. King’s Norton, for instance, will become plain Kings […]
Categories: People and Current Events
At Last: We'll Be Able To Take the Train to Australia!
650 Million Years in a Minute 20: 650 Million Years in 1 Min. and 20 Sec. – Watch more News Videos It’s probably bias, but doesn’t it look like it’s finally gotten the hang of things when it starts to straighten itself out into how it is now? (And isn’t it cute watching lil’ India […]
Categories: Science and Nature
Think of the Old Guy Who Just Made the Biggest Movie of His Life
Movie review: Gran Torino Tim Blair – GET OFF MY LAWN My own take? I liked it. A lot.
Categories: Entertainment
Revolutionary Road Calling
USA Today – Pew: Almost half of Americans want to live somewhere else “City residents disproportionately are more likely than people living in other types of communities to say they would prefer to live in a place other than a city,” Morin says. “Fewer than half of all city residents say there is no better […]
Categories: People and Current Events
Absolutely the Funniest Item of the Day CCIV
Curtsy: Wheat & Weeds and her “little intervention”. I admit, I didn’t get very much done today. I have a regular itinerary on Thursdays. I get up, I get some necessary sustenance (coffee, an English muffin (or, as with this morning, two), etc) settle into my chair here, and before I do anything else (except […]
Categories: Entertainment
The Year of the Beast of Burden
The Times – The Year of the Ox will bring little prosperity for the Chinese<br/> Beijing’s “authoritarian capitalist” model has gone as far as it can. Chaos, corruption and indecision have been ignored, by John Lee (foreign policy fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney) The American model of free markets may be […]
Categories: People and Current Events
In Which I Solve the US Mail's Budget Problems
My mother once said (when I was putting on my shoes to drop some postcards off at the mailbox by my grandmother’s house in Edmonton) that having your mail collected from your house by your mailman is a uniquely American luxury. And why should it be? Why can’t we have the shared communal experience of […]
Categories: People and Current Events
Absolutely the Funniest Item of the Day CCIII
Rolcats – English translations of Russian Lolcats My favourite so far: Cat: My spirit is being crushed within the machinery of industrial society<br/> Mouse: Your failing is lack of hard work and diligence
Categories: Uncategorized
Peter Recommends XCXIII
Popular Mechanics – Lost Season Five Premiere: 2 Hours of Time Travel, Wormholes and Exotic Matter As Peter points out, “Can’t say I’ve seen a Popular Mechanics article written up about BSG.” Two words of the title have been whited-out to protect spoiler-avoiders. Highlight (or just click on the link) to see. It’s Wednesday! Yay!
Categories: Science and Nature
The Beeb's Latest Charitable Impulse
The BBC was going to start an appeal for civilians caught up in the latest Gaza conflict. Eyes rolled, but whatever. Then they called it off. Then the opinion pieces appeared and I thought that would be it, but the next day they kept going, and I thought that was the response and that would […]
Categories: Business & Media
Straining…
The Corner – Peter Kirsanow: Our Adversarial Press So . . . we’re going to have a tax cheat in charge of the IRS, a man instrumental in the pardoning of terrorists as top terrorism watchdog, and a woman whose husband gets tens of millions from foreign governments in charge of implementing foreign policy. Press reaction: Move […]
Categories: Uncategorized
Being Down On the Suburbs In the Suburbs
Telegraph – Revolutionary Road: It’s just snobbery to say the suburbs lack passion, by Charles Moore The novel, which is beautifully written, is rather cruel and condescending to the world it depicts, but at least it makes it clear that the true enemy is not suburbia in itself, but the tragic fact of life that […]
Categories: Entertainment
Jesus Hates Winners
I saw this yesterday on Fox News. A coach leads his girls basketball team to a 100-0 win in Dallas. So the school canned him: “It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition. We humbly apologize for our actions and seek the […]
Categories: Sports and Leisure
Happy Day For Happy Aussies
It’s Australia Day, and Flickr has unveiled in its Flickr Commons the photo library of the State Library of Queensland. Of course the one that caught my eye was: Sir Walter Jackson Cooper, Lady Cooper and Queen Elizabeth II at the Greenslopes Hospital, Brisbane during the Royal Visit to Australia 1954. Update (1.27): Unhappy Aussies? […]
Categories: History
