So a committee of the Arizona State House of Reps just passed a particularly appalling bill -- short version, teaching that "denigrates American values and the teachings of Western civilization" or that "overtly encourage dissent" from those values (the newspaper article lists democracy, capitalism, pluralism and religious toleration, but there are ( Read more... )

A good chunk of this is actually reflection on the practice of archaeology, but the rest of it's about the most recent episode of Doctor Who, so I'm going to put the whole thing behind a cut, 'cause its chucky-jam full of spoilers.  And now that I've written it, it's also rather long.

Funnily enough, our Arch science seminar guest this past week ( Read more... )

Technically speaking, I'm on spring break this week.  In real terms, this means I'm busting my ass to get enough of my MA research done to present a poster at the Society for American Archaeology conference (not to mention make said poster, and get the rest of my MA research done so that I can write the damn thing).  This is not restful or break- ( Read more... )

I'm *certain* Pookaknight knows this already, but for anyone who doesn't:  CBS has the whole original series of Star Trek up on their website for free streaming.  Just in case anybody has time to kill ;-)

You may have already heard this one.  According to a study done by a marketing firm Mac users are "more liberal, less modest, and more assured of their own superiority than the population at large." 

(A poem by former poet laureate Ted Kooser)

If You Feel Sorry

If you feel sorry for yourself
this Valentine's Day, think of
the dozens of little paper poppies
left in the box when the last
of the candy is gone, how they
must feel, dried out and brown
in their sad old heart-shaped box,
without so much as a single finger
to scrabble around in their
crinkled ( Read more... )

I finally finished the 3rd season of Dr. Who.  I would concur with what seems to be the general feeling that the final three episodes are brilliant, except when they aren't (which is pretty much confined to parts of The Last of the Time Lords).  I found this music video before I saw those three episodes, but now it seems really, really appropriate ( Read more... )

I should be getting ready to leave, but wanted to put this up. . . .
I think I said a while ago that Steven Brust was writing/wrote a Firefly tie-in novel.  It's now up for download on his website  for those who are interested.

So, I watched Blink last night, meaning that I'm almost finished with the third season of Dr. Who  (also meaning that I contemplated going to sleep with the light on).  Blink was fantastic, and, in general I've enjoyed the season immensely -- I mean, 42 and The Lazarus Experiment weren't great, but they weren't nearly as bad as I was expecting.  ( Read more... )

This news story starts out with the phrase  "Scientists say they have reached an important milestone in a quest to build a life-form from scratch."

Grab your pitchforks and torches!  Or start stockpiling canned food for the superplague that turns everyone else into zombies!  Or. . . hell, it's like a history of disaster science fiction ;-)