Month: August 2006

Well, there is such a device as an epod, and there is such a place as ibay, so I suppose it could happen (especially if you’re running MacWindows.) Really, the way words and even parts of words are being gobbled up by the copyright and trademark laws is astounding. And (now that Apple is unleashing…

In a post about Arianna Huffington, Dr. Helen shares a wonderful tidbit of wisdom: A couple of commenters have claimed that I do not allow dissenting views or that I am equally as intolerant to dissenting views as Huffington is. Huh? You are posting your opinion here freely on my blog and then accusing me…

A lot of people are fussing about Event Data Recorders (known as EDRs), and the NHTSA is now going to require auto manufacturers to disclose whether they’ve been installed. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has passed a regulation requiring car makers to inform customers when their car has been equipped…

On the way to Bermuda, I passed under the Delaware Memorial Bridge — the “the world’s longest twin suspension bridge.” As photo opportunities go, the bridge was hard to resist. A couple of days after going under the bridge, I found myself inside the ruins of an unfinished Bermuda church: Work began on the church…

This is interesting: Dario Ringach, an associate neurobiology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, decided this month to give up his research on primates because of pressure put on him, his neighborhood, and his family by the UCLA Primate Freedom Project, which seeks to stop research that harms animals. Anti-animal research groups…

Speaking of loopholes, Reverend Tim LaBouf doesn’t think there are any which allow women to teach men, so he fired an 81-year-old female Sunday school teacher: Watertown First Baptist Church Pastor Tim LaBouf, also a city council member in Watertown, N.Y., said women could fulfill any role or responsibility they wanted to — outside the…

“Everything about man is deception and falsehood.” So concludes Francisco de Quevedo in his “Visions,” one of which (from the following print series by Salvador Dali) has been staring me in the face for years. I like Dali and I bought print “C” (shown on the upper right) on ebay years ago, but the seller…

Via an email I received while I was away, here’s a news item which falls into the man-bites-dog category: BRISTOW, Okla. (Aug. 8) – Former Oklahoma judge Donald Thompson was sent to prison for four years Friday for exposing himself by using a sexual device while presiding over jury trials. The sentencing judge thought the…

This week’s RINO Sightings Carnival is hosted by Doug Mataconis at Below The Beltway. My thanks to Doug for including Dennis’s swimmingly good post. A couple of posts especially caught my attention. Stephen Littau offers an excellent argument against routine deployment of SWAT teams to serve routine search warrants, especially the use of murderous state…

I’m finally back, which means that if I am going to continue to blog I need to get caught up with (yechh!) politics. In all honesty, leaving the country and spending a week away politics does not make it more attractive upon return. It’s a paradox, as it is my distrust of political manipulation which…

When does observation become racism? Browsing around some websites, I happened across video of someone named Tramm Hudson running for political office somewhere who is now being vilified across the internet for making supposedly racist remarks: he said that in his experience blacks weren’t ‘the greatest swimmers or may not even know how to swim.’…

Due to Eric’s vacation and my own isolation from the outside world (I’m trapped by various things academic) I thought I’d post some sketches I made a while back for a cartoon I never completed because of time constraints and quality concerns. At the time I didn’t think the drawings were very good, and I…

Today is the first time I’ve had a chance to get online. (Well sort of.) I have a slight Internet connection which may last for another few minutes. So I’ll try to upload a photo I took yesterday, showing a view from the parapets of the fort adjoining the Bermuda Dockyards. (If it goes through…

I can’t be Eric in his absence, so I apologize for those accustomed to detailed, well-researched essays on the culture war. All I can offer at the moment is a few thoughts, and one that’s been bugging me for awhile is the demonization of Joe Lieberman. My best friend has always voted Democrat but has…

That ought to quiet the naysayers.

Fidel Castro is alive and doing quite well. Well enough even to read the paper in his favorite casual wear: Cuban printing, not to mention photography, is truly remarkable. The text is so crisp it almost looks like it should have one of those disclaimers they always have in print ads and TV commercials, ‘simulated…

Yeah, I’m taking a week off. A vacation is long overdue, and not only do I think I deserve a break, I think I need one, which is not exactly the same thing. But it’s nice to have such a convergence. I might be able to check in from time to time, but I can’t…

Of all the bloggers who might be sent to cover the Mideast War, if I could pick just whose trust and experience are second to none, I couldn’t possibly come up with anyone better than Michael J. Totten. Well, it just so happens that he’s literally right on the Israeli-Lebanon border right now, podcasting from…

Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Belgian blogger Paul Belien (about whom I have posted before) has once again been visited by the police. He’s holding firm: Apparently someone in Ghent has lodged a complaint against this website. I am not allowed to know who this person is, but I am requested to come to…

Professor Keith Burgess-Jackson does not think President Bush should have used the term “Islamic fascist” to describe the Islamic enemy, and he would prefer the president use the term “Islamists.” (Via Glenn Reynolds.) I’m not in the business of defending Bush, and while it may be true that he wasn’t strictly accurate in his use…