Somewhere, I’ve written the story - more than once - about that phrase, “What’cha Gonna DO?”, and my response to it. It is the single most memorable thing I ever heard Richard Pryor say. He was quoting his friend Jim Brown talking to him about his cocaine addiction… over and over, regardless of what excuse […]

One of my friends sent me email with a link to this:
Red Alert: Possible Geopolitical Consequences of the Mumbai Attacks
Ignore that blather.
Let me tell you what the real immediate consequences are.
India will be blessed with its very own Bureau of Fatherland Sekkkurity, which will immediately constitute a new, improved Federal Police as well as a […]

The “bailout” that is now playing as “The TARP” (shouldn’t that be “trap”?)
The US Representative mentioned below actually said “live” on C-SPAN as he spoke to the House, that he had heard threats of “martial law” if they failed to “bail out” the banksters…. later, he sort of retracted it, but he pussy-footed around so […]

From the mouths (in this case,pencils) of babes… I particularly like the one that goes “Dear God, Did you mean for giraffe to look like that or was it an accident?”
Letters to God - FUnlimited

Most, although not all, of the free books are PDF files, which is de facto the most useful file format, since it includes fontable (is that a real word?) text, plus images and even clickable links… I’ve used two of them extensively even before finding this list (gutenberg and scribd), but I really like the […]

TELEVISION AND THE HIVE MINDThe other night, in the midst of 3^* kicking ass yet again in Smackdown Trivia, one of the things that passes for intellectual activity here on the Last Frontier, a brief topic of discussion went ’round the table, occasioned by our being the only team to not know the answer to […]

Banks are failing all over the country, but not the sand
banks, solid and warm and streaked with bloody blackberry vines. You
may run on them as much as you please, even as the crickets do . . .    – from “I to Myself” by Henry David Thoreau, 1857There you go - 150 years ago, “The Panic” […]

Obama has been quick to announce his intention to reverse several of George Bush’s more irrelevant abuses of power, such as stemcell research and domestic drilling.
Fine… whatever… But: what are the chances of his reversing issues of REAL substance, such as the clampdown on civil liberties or ending the illegal wars of Iraq and […]

Below is a link to a list of many interesting web pages on the general topics of mapping and otherwise turning data into visual graphic forms.
The other day, I was talking with someone about a site - and its application - that I found a few years ago, which excited me tremendously at the […]

Here is a link to an interesting, interactive map of the West Bank - an area nominally belonging to Palestinians, but mostly controlled by Israelis. By clicking on features, you can see who in fact actually controls what part of the West Bank.
Mapping an occupation - the West Bank barrier | World news | […]