Missives From the Reality-Based World
The most recent GWB-related news is that Bush 41 is now “pained” at how reviled his son is. We’re reminded that Daddy is 83 delicate years old; we’re supposed, I guess, to feel some kind of sympathy for the old man, and translate that into Good Feeling for his inbred retard of a moron son. Well, let’s think […]
Recently there was a progressive open house at the Medical Professional Center, a more or less satellite facility to the hospital here where physicians have private practices. The idea was that, in order to publicize a half dozen recently-arrived physicians, there would be a sort of food scavenger hunt from office to office. Beginning with beverages, progressing to crudité, […]
The last time I wrote about John Couey was March of this year, after he’d been found guilty of the rape and ghastly murder of nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford. The question at the time was whether he was mentally capable of understanding the magnitude of his crimes; if he was, in short, mentally retarded and therefore unsuitable […]
Leaving aside the wisdom of parents choosing either name, I have to ask why the hell New Zealand thinks it can accept or reject any name chosen for a child. A New Zealand couple is looking to call their newborn son Superman — but only because their chosen name of 4Real has been rejected by the government […]
Fifteen years ago Douglas Adams wrote a book called Last Chance to See. Unlike his Hitchhiker’s and Dirk Gently series, this was nonfiction; in it he chronicled the plight of a half dozen or so extremely endangered species — imperiled by human encroachment on their territories — and penned a beautifully-done memoir of desperation. He wrote the following […]
I wrote this in 1999, when I was there. I actually lived in this. In Wausau. Some mornings the air was so cold you felt your breath freeze in your nostrils as you inhaled. The moisture from your out-breath just solidified on the hairs and passages in your nose as you breathed in. It is a very strange […]
This set of images of Earth is, according to NASA, the best full-planet view to date. At work I have two monitors, which means I get both hemispheres. Mini versions after the fold (mini-we?). H/T to Seed.
I think Hillary Clinton has lost my vote too. Apparently there has been some discussion of employing nukes — nukes! — against terrorist cells; Clinton refused to say whether or not she’d use them. The yield of even a small weapon is so tremendous that setting one off to kill the average cluster of terrorists would affect […]
It’s a ticket that doesn’t even exist. One man is undeclared; the other is far, far behind in polls. So why don’t we change that? Why not, for once in living memory, choose the best men for the job? Gore and Kucinich. Because we’re tired of stupidity.
When you live online, a fact of life you get used to is that sometimes personal notes get unintentionally sent to a wider audience; usually it’s because they’ve been sent by mistake to a listserv. Generally these notes are nonsignificant, sometimes they are weird (just a comment meant for a friend), and sometimes they are deeply personal and everyone just […]
Apparently Mr. Obama has forgotten something very important about the majority of voters in the US right now. US presidential candidate Barack Obama has said he would order military action against al-Qaeda in Pakistan without the consent of Pakistan’s government. Hey. Barack. Diplomacy first, last and always. War is the last recourse of a failed negotiator. It […]
It’s strange to learn that someone whom you didn’t know very well has affected you in subtle, slight ways. I met Robin Kornman about half a decade ago; the other members of the Milwaukee Shambhala sangha had good things to say about him and seemed pleased to learn he would be returning soon after a hiatus — I think […]
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