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Pat Robertson
I LIKED THIS COMMENT, found at Balloon Juice, and concur.
The subject happens to be a “total fucking moron” that I have seen in the flesh, under the most prosaic circumstances. Some years ago I saw the Rev Pat Robertson pumping gas into a dark or dirty-black Cadillac at the ( Read more... ) -
Warm
THERE IS A WEATHER STATION here in town reporting 43°F outside. The lady on our public radio station this morning said today would be “warm, with highs around forty” and chilly as that sounds it really does seem warm on this sunny afternoon.
This is the third day running we have gone above freezing. I don't ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
THE LATEST EMBARRASSMENT from the BBC:
So are the “grassroots” genuinely angry, or are the protests simply manufactured “astroturf”?
That depends largely on your politics - or whether you watch the liberal MSNBC or conservative Fox News.
I should have thought that it depends largely on the demonstrable, objective truth of the matter, but I ( Read more... ) -
Marxism, traditional religion, and scientific materialsim
MY FRIEND JESUISGRINGOIRE brought to my attention Michael McGoodwin's summary of On Human Nature, authored by biologist E O Wilson. I have not read the book, and consequently have no idea whether McGoodwin's encapsulation of the ideas presented therein is accurate, but one sentence in particular leaped right off the screen and straight up my nose:
The three ( Read more... ) -
Boiled custard
THE BLACKBERRIES THAT GROW WILD OUT BACK are coming in nicely this week, so nicely that yesterday evening I just couldn't wait any longer to bake the obligatory cobbler. Here at Chez Michaleen, a generous portion ( Read more... ) -
St Sarah and the Beeb
THE BBC'S MATT FREI, phoning in his “Washington Diary” update, apparently from another planet:
[Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin] showed real talent. No-one who was there can deny the raw rhetoric with which she electrified the Republican ranks at the party's convention in St Paul last September.
It was enough to flummox the ( Read more... ) -
RIP Michael Jackson
ASIDE FROM A FEW remarkably tasteless jokes about the passing of Jackson, for me the most striking thing I've seen said about the man was posted by poliphilo, in comments on his LJ:
I vaguely remember going “wow!” the first time I saw the moonwalk - but once you've seen it you've seen it. It's a clever little trick, but it doesn't take you anywhere.
( Read more... ) -
Mr Jefferson on the Press
FROM, “HISTORY, HUME, AND THE PRESS” - a letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 14 June 1807:
To your request of my opinion of the manner in ( Read more... ) -
Weather
WE HAD yet another downpour yesterday, something unusually commonplace this season. After a pleasantly sunny morning and early afternoon, only the fourth in a row, the sky darkened ominously for a while before it came down in buckets - not for long, but long enough.
Looking at the local weather history, I see this ends the second ( Read more... )