• Blogs Wot I Read - Hot Off The Presses

    Fun with Find and Replace

    After reading Joey’s inaugural Excited States post, I ran across something in David Beard’s Archaeology in Europe blog that got me started thinking about Neanderthals, mice, FOX News reporters, and Democratic Congresspersons. Fooling around with “find and replace” in Wordpad is childish good fun. Neanderthals had key speech gene, researchers say | The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/19/neanderthal_speech/ FOX News reporters may have a reputation in popular culture as a lumbering, grunting people, but researchers have discovered that they did have a gene thought to play a key role in speech. Samples of DNA were retrieved from two FOX News reporter fossils found…

  • Blogs Wot I Read

    Critical Manners: Less Testosterone, More Courtesy

    Critical Manners Critical Manners: a revolutionary act of courtesy. Come put the nice back in the bike world with Critical Manners! A helmet-wearing, bell-ringing, blinkie-sportin’ good time for you and all your bike friends. Practice synchronized signaling, single file riding, stopping at stop signs and NOT blowing red lights. Critical Manners will brake for pedestrians, trolleys, and even the occasional SUV. If you’ve ridden in Critical Mass, you know about the “testosterone brigade”. Maybe it’s time you rode with Critical Manners — We take obedience of the law ridiculously seriously. As seen at Accordion Guy… my husband David wants the…

  • Episcopal - Good and Joyful Things

    Good and Evil

    What is good to a liberal is evil to a conservative, and vice versa. But what is truly good? And what is truly evil? How about a little exercise in compare/contrast? ::Humility, Grace and Freedom by Canon Dr Joe Cassidy:: So here’s what puzzles me: Given all this openness, why can’t we allow or even authorise the Episcopal Church to experiment with including gay lay-people, gay deacons, gay priests and, yes, gay bishops? Why can’t we allow the Episcopal Church to experiment with same-sex/quasi-nuptual blessings? Why can’t we ask the Episcopal Church to undertake, on behalf of the rest of…

  • Hot Off The Presses - Politics, Schmolitics

    ZOMG Colbert Pour Le President Oui Oui

    He may actually try to get on the ballot in South Carolina, and he may have a decent shot at a Pat Paulsen-like campaign that serves to highlight the absurdities of the American political process. He’s going to try to get on both the Democratic and Republican primary ballots.  And apparently, there’s nothing to prevent him in the rules.  Oh, delicious! He’s a native son of the state, he’s within his rights, and the SC Democrats are okay with it as long as he pays their low-low filing fee of $2500 or gets 3,000 signatures. They’re rather amused by the…

  • Books - Hot Off The Presses - Politics, Schmolitics

    Where Is Stephen’s Hat?

    Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report (mind the silent Ts) hijacks Maureen Dowd’s NYT column to note that although his hat is not in the ring, it’s not on his head… and his new book is in stores now. Also, he ghost-writes Frank Rich’s column too. His work there done. Actually, if Stephen Colbert ran for office, he should seriously think about an extremely manly religious blogger/Saviour as a running mate: Jesus’ General. I Am an Op-Ed Columnist (And So Can You!) By STEPHEN COLBERT Surprised to see my byline here, aren’t you? I would be too, if I read…

  • Mini-Posts

    links for 2007-10-16

    The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us – New York Times “Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnam (tags: NYT Iraq Smackdown FrankRich)

  • Hot Off The Presses - Politics, Schmolitics

    a disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal process

    Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week. Details about the alleged NSA program have been redacted…