Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
Take a look at the gravestone to the right; that’s from one of my family members; translated from the German, it reads “Born in the year 1736: Heinrich Rittenhouse…” and trails off into the grass. Wikipedia’s entry on the Mennonite church / movement notes: Persecution and the search for employment forced Mennonites out of the [...]
Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery? It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like [...]
Went to the podiatrist/surgeon on Monday, and he’s leaving in the stitches for longer – I’m a slow healer, and there’s a couple of small gaps in the thing. He’s switched over to a much smaller bandage thing, essentially enough to cover the incision, and has to be redone every day with special silver gel [...]
This year, we consolidated our bank stuff from three different banks to one local credit union; two of those banks had just been eaten in big-fish eats littler-fish takeovers (one of which was handled by the FDIC as the bank went bust), and we were paying a hideous amount of money in fees for sneezing [...]
BBC: “The Labour candidate for Bootle on Merseyside has had the tip of his finger bitten off by a dog while out campaigning. Joe Benton, 77, was taken to hospital after the animal bit him as he pushed an election leaflet through a letter box. Mr Benton has been unable to vote for himself as [...]
In the US, coverage from the BBC starts at 3:55 pm EDT on CSPAN3 and goes to whenever. Polls go from 7a-10:30p in the UK; translate that into your own time. If you want a goofy idea of how these things will go, watch this youtube of Monty Python’s Election Night Special (Tarquin fim tim [...]
University of Dayton basketball playing for the NIT championship, 7 pm. Be there. Aloha!
Couple makes ‘wedding trailer’ as an announcement of their upcoming wedding for family and friends: it’s VERY funny. Helps if you’re some kind of film buff….watch for 2012, Matrix, Bruce Lee and other references in the video. Look for the Vietnamese subtitles…
In Northern Ireland (and I’m sure my readers will correct me), the political system is way unrelated to the rest of UK politics – its own microcosm. You have a multiple divide in politics there – ethnic, religious, class, minority/majority issues, republican versus monarchist, and who smote who first and last. When you get these [...]
The local Sioux Falls paper notes that the voting percentage in the most recent school board election was 3.55% in an editorial asking for voting to be made easier by eliminating precinct voting in favor of at-large polling places scattered around the city. Personally, I think that’s more likely to confuse the heck out of [...]
A new book on the 2008 presidential season with lots of behind the scenes goodies has a lengthy excerpt bit on the New York magazine size, where John and Elizabeth Edwards get seriously toasted: entitled “Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster” if that gives you a heads-up. It’s pretty brutal. The line that kept coming [...]
The Bruce Schneier Action Figure! At $100, it’s a steal! Be the first on your block! Now, i’m just waiting for the RJ Johnson and Bill Roper Auctioneer Action figures…
…because the first one overloaded the account with all the hits from people wanting to read it: http://rorr.im/digg.com/movies/two_gentlemen_of_lebowski/ Marmotaged drollery, to be sure. Prithee.
“Two Gentlemen of Lebowski” – a Shakespearian version of THE BIG LEBOWSKI, just as odd. It talks about Johnsons and marmots, so it can’t be all bad. [Alarums. Enter OLIVER and the two NIHILISTS, bearing a marmot] Forsooth! This be a place Of residence, and much a private place.— O excellent marmot! WALTER Nihilists! I [...]
My favorite conservative columnist, Daniel Larison, is hitting it on the head and out of the ballpark this morning about the mindless OMG’ing in the Beltway press and elsewhere about political dishonesty on national security issues. He brings up two main directions on this: if Group A is out of office, then Group B (who [...]