Watch USA v England . . . in Lego-motion!
A Lego reenactment of the goals scored in the USA vs. England 2010 World Cup group match.
For my brother Peter.
The bigotry of "judicial activism"
Stephanie Jone's Washington Post article, entitled "Thurgood Marshall's legacy deserves cheers, not sneers", is a solid response to the GOP flogging of Thurgood Marshall during the Kagan Supreme Court confirmation hearings last week; Marshall was accused repeatedly of being an "activist" judge. "Activist" is a term which is often used by conservatives to define a judge who goes beyond the Constitution to make law, rather than interpret it.David Brooks over-reacts to McChrystal’s firing
David Brook's opinion piece in the New York Times, The Culture of Exposure, was written in response to the article in Rolling Stone about General Stanley McChrystal, which precipitated McChrystal's loss of his Afghanistan military command. While I generally agree with Mr. Brook's sentiments regarding sensationalism from the media (of which he is part), some of which serves to over-expose poor private behavior, I find his response to Gen. McChrystal's dismissal from command incomplete and inadequate.
Oregon Scribbler.
Congratulations to Dr. Jon! Woohoo!
Our son Jonathan Wiebe graduated from the University of Virginia medical school recently, and just started his residency at Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. Congratulations, Jon!
"Superman violates the laws of physics!" (I will never live that down.)
Many years ago, my wife and I viewed the Superman movie with Christopher Reeve, which featured a scene wherein Superman sees Lois Lane being crushed in an earthquake, and so he flies around the earth faster than the speed of light so that he can go back in time and rescue Lois just before she is crushed.
My immediate response to this was "That couldn't happen; nothing can move faster than the speed of light." My wife's response was to start giggling without pause.
Listen to an Internet choir: lush!
A choir as big as the Internet! Eric Whitacre directs a virtual choir.
Take a listen!
Craig Venter is utterly amazing!
Craig Venter and his team have taken a large step in synthetic biology: They have created a full bacterial chromosome starting from a computer model of the chromosome! Enter, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0.
Book review, Title The Pacific, Author Hugh Ambrose, Rating 2.5,
The Pacific
Hugh Ambrose
Book review
Too pacific
I picked this book up on whim, to fill the hours of a long plane ride, mostly because of my admiration of the The Band of Brothers HBO series. I had read that the new HBO Spielberg-Hanks production The Pacific was also excellent, but I do not have access to HBO and was waiting for the series to be published in blue-ray. So I thought, the book The Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose, upon which the HBO series was based, was very good, so why not just read The Pacific in anticipation of that TV series?
Book review, Title Angler, Author Barton Gellman, Rating 3.0,
Angler
Barton Gellman
Book review
The historic Cheney Vice-Presidency
Bart Gellman's book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency is a competent and sometimes surprising look at Dick Cheney's vice-presidency. The most surprising revelation? Cheney's fall from W.'s grace.
Waving the flag for the right reasons
Federal law was changed a few years ago to allow veterans and servicemen not in uniform to salute the flag when it was being hoisted or lowered or presented, typically at a ball game. Prior to that, only servicemen were allowed that privilege. Civilians who haven’t served still should remove their hat and hold it or their hand over their heart.
Book review, Title Sh*t My Dad Says, Author Justin Halpern, Rating 3.5,
Sh*t My Dad Says
Justin Halpern
Book review
Candid, loving portrait of Dad
Pungent humor is the outward appeal of this loving and candid portrait of Dad; that it is often poignant and contains a surprising amount of insight is the hidden delight.
Cheating on a metaphysics exam
Selected one liners from Woody Allen:
"I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me."
"Those that can't do, teach, and those that can't teach, teach gym."
"I failed to make the chess team because of my height."
Book review, Title Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend, Author Gary L. Roberts, Rating 3.0,
Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend
Gary L. Roberts
Book review
Doc Holliday’s story
Robert's book Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend is a solid effort to document the life of one of the main participants of the shootout at the OK Corral, and provides a dramatic rendering of that famous event. I found it a nice diversion.
The wisdom of Mark Twain
"I want to be in Kentucky when the end of the world comes, because they are always 20 years behind."
-Mark Twain?Substitute for Kentucky a place that you feel is less aware than you think you are.
Book review, Title The Death of Adam, Author Marilynne Robinson, Rating 2.5,
The Death of Adam
Marilynne Robinson
Book review
Modern Jeremiad
Marilynne Robinson's The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought could just as well have been entitled 'Modern Jeremiad', as its tone is often bleak, accusatory, and angry, sure that the world, and America in particular, has taken a set of massively wrong turns in terms of both its thinking and its behavior. This is a book that marks modern thought as empty of spiritual meaning, and continually contrasts secular (mostly failed) ideas and behaviors with Christianity's spirituality and ability to offer meaning and moral structure in a modern human's life. The essays are wildly uneven, and the variation in quality is quite wide; most are readable, but several are nigh on unreadable. If you were to read this book from back to front, you would, roughly speaking, be reading from the best essays to the worst.
Abiogenesis or Creation?
Abiogenesis currently amounts to little more than scientific parlor talk, which leaves us free to choose an explanation of the origin of life that is most personally satisifying.I think that life was more likely created by God than having arisen spontaneously on earth. I have read a number of scientific arguments regarding the origin of life. They differ markedly in some aspects, but they are consistent in arguing that life on earth is massively complex and a massive amount of time would be necessary for life to arise from non-life (formation of the first self-replicating cell, then the evolution of life to its current forms). Many of abiogenesis proponents suggest that the current estimate of the earth's age, 4.5 billion years, is not sufficient time for life to have arisen spontaneously! At any rate . . .
Movie Review, Title The Passion Of The Christ, Studio 20th Century Fox, Rating 1.5,
The Passion Of The Christ (2004)
Director: Mel Gibson
Movie Review
The goriest story ever told
The Passion of the Christ is a violent, unrelenting cascade of gore and violence against one man, Jesus Christ, and is one of the most offensive films I have personally seen. Many films have depicted Christ, but none in memory steeped his last few days on earth in gratuitous and pornographic violence while de-emphasizing the purpose of the suffering.
Bacteria talk to each other … new approach to antibiotics?
The old bacterial cell wall inhibitors, etc. are the antibiotics soon to be the past, obviously so because the bacteria have evolved means to defeat most of them, and we are out of good ideas to extend those methods, save at much too slow a pace. But much has been learned about bacteria in the past 20 years, and from this recent knowledge are born new points of attack!!!
[A great nation is saved] by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans and empty quacks
In the world of politics, the degree to which scruples are exercised is in inverse proportion to the degree to which moral rectitude is claimed.
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