12 Nov 2012
Grover Norquist: Mitt Romney painted as ‘poopy head’

You read that right - the words "Grover" and "poopy-head" in the same sentence, and it's not on Sesame Street...

Grover Norquist said on Monday that President Barack Obama won reelection by portraying Mitt Romney as a “poopy-head.”

(link) [Politico]

22:13 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

11 Nov 2012
Einherjar 2012

Today is the civic commemoration of the end of the First World War, also known as Veteran's Day. Over the years, heathenry has adopted this as the Feast of the Einherjar, honoring the soldiers and veterans among us. Ravenswood holds our feast this evening.

Meanwhile, up in Minnesota, Volkshof Kindred held their celebration last evening - and our daughter Hilary was in attendance! Her description was of a vibrant group of young families, children everywhere (including our youngest granddaughter) and moving and glowing tribute fit fot the occasion. It warms the cockles of our heathen hearts to see a young and growing kindred carrying on the work we started so many years ago - and even more to think that our progeny will be a part of this process. So Hail Volkshof, Hail Hilary and Hail the Einherjar!

12:24 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

In France, a Mission to Return the Military's Carrier Pigeons to Active Duty

Not only in France, but in China too! Who knew? Note the problems that modern breeding have induced: prettier (whiter) birds with limited range.

The French military boasts a powerful army with nuclear submarines, ballistic missiles and spy satellites. For lawmaker Jean-Pierre Decool, however, the country is neglecting one of its mightiest weapons: its flock of carrier pigeons.

(link) [Wall Street Journal]

11:07 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

09 Nov 2012
Why the GOP Will Double Down on a Losing Strategy

I find it difficult to celebrate anyone's election - but I do not find it nearly so tough to celebrate most of the Republican Party's defeat. They've been captured by Christian Right, and that fact alone makes this heathen very nervous. In fact, it makes me positively nauseous to hear them mouth slogans about "small government" and "liberty" while trying to crush gay rights and a woman's right to choose. Watching them squirm now because those contradictions cost them big is rather amusing. And I'm afraid the article's right - they probably will double down on the stupid, and end up going the way of the dodo.

After the historic GOP congressional wave in 2010, many Republicans were sure Obama was destined for defeat in 2012. An incumbent who had presided over four years of high unemployment — and whose overwhelming unpopularity was discussed as an immutable fact on Fox News and talk radio — seemed ripe for the picking. His re-election has some party leaders worried that the GOP is out of step with demographic and ideological trends, preaching to a shrinking choir. They do not want to be what Congressman turned TV host Joe Scarborough has despairingly called “the stupid party,” with retro in-the-bubble ideas about rape, contraception and “self-deportation” that alienate a modern multicultural electorate.

(link) [Time]

09:14 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Loss & gain, or the fate of the book

A bibliophile's lament...

But the consolation that my library will dissolve into its constituent parts in the great world of second-hand books is not as great as it was even a few years ago. Second-hand booksellers are closing their shops and transferring their businesses online because 90 percent of their sales come from the Internet and 90 percent of their overheads come from their shops. It is a very simple business decision.

(link) [New Criterion]

08:07 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

30 Oct 2012
The Plot to Destroy America's Beer

If anything will turn ordinary Americans against the Corporate State, this is it.

One Friday night in January, Rinfret, who is now 52, stopped on the way home from work at his local liquor store in Monroe, N.J., and purchased a 12-pack of Beck’s. When he got home, he opened a bottle. “I was like, what the hell?” he recalls. “It tasted light. It tasted weak. Just, you know, night and day. Bubbly, real fizzy. To me, it wasn’t German beer. It tasted like a Budweiser with flavoring.” He examined the label. It said the beer was no longer brewed in Bremen. He looked more closely at the fine print: “Product of the USA.” This was profoundly unsettling for a guy who had been a Beck’s drinker for more than half his life. He was also miffed to have paid the full import price for the 12-pack.

(link) [Business Week]

19:13 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

24 Oct 2012
Mourdock’s mistake is speaking for God

The Republican Party scares me more and more with every election cycle. They are rapidly becoming religious fascists, and if anybody out there seriously thinks they'll stop with opposition to abortion and gay marriage they'll be in for a rude shock if the Teavangelicals get control of House, Senate and Presidency. Contraception will be next on the target list - even the humble condom is an affront to their almighty god. Who knows what their god will demand after that?

Steinberg correctly points out the dangers of this attitude in this piece, albeit from a Christian perspective. He's a bit more optimistic than I over their minority status, but that could be due to his location in Chicago and mine in rural Indiana.

I actually witnessed an incident similar to what he uses to illustrate his point. Some years ago I co-officiated at a funeral for two young boys who died in a fire. The family (and the funeral) was heathen, and before the service a relative of the grieving mother approached her and said "It's really OK, your little boys are in Heaven with Jesus now, and all things work for the glory of God." The mother wheeled and literally punched her cousin out cold.

These theocrats have got to be stopped, and soon, but it can't just be done in the political arena. It's going to take a cultural change towards tolerance to get any lasting good effects. Steinberg seems to think that change is underway. I hope he's right.

Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock joined a growing list of Tea Party Republicans — Joe Walsh, Todd Akin — who stumbled into a briar patch by telling women what to believe, in this case when Mourdock said when a women conceives after a rape, “it’s something God intended.”

(link) [Chicago Sun Times]

19:20 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Rights? You have no right to your eBooks

Future tyrants won't have to burn the library, they'll just turn it off.

News spread quickly on the web today of the predicament faced by a woman in Norway, Linn, who has lost all access to the eBooks she legitimately purchased from Amazon. The story first emerged on a friend's blog, where a sequence of e-mails from Michael Murphy, a customer support representative at Amazon.co.uk were posted. These painted a picture some interpreted as Amazon remotely erasing a customer's Kindle, but in conversation with Linn I discovered that was not what had happened - something just as bad did, though.

(link) [ComputerWorld UK]

08:27 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Who needs lawnmowers?

Not only is the grass nicely clipped, it's automatically fertilized...

The Near Eastside has an enormous number of vacant lots with overgrown grass and weeds, and almost as many abandoned houses. Instead of calling the city to take lawnmowers to those lots, or a letting a handful of good Samaritans do it themselves, the neighborhood association decided to buy sheep and let them graze.

(link) [Indianapolis Star]

08:15 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

23 Oct 2012
Caller Wants Deer Crossing Signs Moved

What can I say?

If we moved deer crossing signs off of highways, deer would finally stop running into oncoming traffic.

(link) [Huffington Post]

22:27 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

22 Oct 2012
Come Home, America

George McGovern, RIP

To the slanting wall above my desk is taped a large “Come Home America/ Vote McGovern Shriver ’72” poster. Designed by artist Leonard R. Fuller, the collage fills an outline of the United States with iconographic images, historic statuary, and photos of unprepossessing but individuated Americans. The message is peace and brotherhood and a return to the ideals of the Founders. The mood is civics-class hippie, antiwar wife-of-a-Rotarian, liberal community-college-professor-who-cries-at-“America the Beautiful.” Like George McGovern himself, the poster suggests that a hopeful and patriotic mild radicalism resides on Main Street America. Or as Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe once asked, what’s so funny ‘bout peace, love, and understanding?

(link) [The American Conservative]

via C4SS

18:57 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

21 Oct 2012
A Long Year

It's been a year since my heart surgery. I'm still vertical and taking fluids, so I guess that's good. The anniversary has effected me more than I anticipated. I suppose when one comes that close to one's own mortality one shouldn't be surprised to find it's effects prolonged. Oh, well. With any luck whatsoever, I'll have a few more anniversaries of this date to reflect on.

19:59 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

16 Oct 2012
A Trip to the Faroe Islands

In pictures, not in person (unfortunately). Perhaps I have a soft spot for a place whose capital and largest city is Tórshavn ("Thor's Haven"), or perhaps it's the sheep and the mountains, but for whatever reason I find these 33 of the most stunning pictures I've ever run across. Makes me want to book a flight or hop a freighter.

In the North Atlantic, halfway between Norway and Iceland, the Faroe Islands are home to more than 50,000 people. The rugged, treeless archipelago is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and has been inhabited by humans (and sheep) since the early 8th century. The local economy relies heavily on fishing and maritime industry. The unique landscape and location attracts photographers with its fantastic play of light between sun, cloud, meadow, cliff, and sea. Collected here are images of the Faroes from recent years.

(link) [The Atlantic]

23:27 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Monsanto Seed Patent Case Gets U.S. Supreme Court Review

This could huge: if the Court comes to it's senses and stops this idiocy we're back to some semblance of sanity in the patent regime. If it allows it to stand the slippery slope towards conversion of every idea into "intellectual property" of some sort or another will have become a water slide.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider how patent rules apply to self-replicating technologies, accepting an appeal from a farmer seeking to circumvent Monsanto’s planting restrictions on its genetically modified seeds.

(link) [Business Week]

11:29 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Billy Graham Endorses Romney Then Scrubs Site Calling Mormonism A Cult

Because Oceania has always been at war with East Asia.

Billy Graham last night endorsed Mitt Romney for president, and shortly thereafter, his website was scrubbed of a statement Graham or his organization made calling Mormonism a “cult.”

(link) [The New Civil Rights Movement]

11:23 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

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