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 [...]
America is not a “Christian” nation in the way we think of “Muslim” nations. If it were, birth certificates would automatically indicate “Christian” as the “faith of birth.” It would be illegal to convert to another faith. Jews, Native American religions, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons and atheists would be unwelcome. They would need to practice [...]
“When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. And that’s made brothers and sisters out of every race — out of every race. America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Guy is away, and his friends troupe in and wrap his entire apartment for Christmas. Including stuff in the freezer, towels on the rack, you name it. (video)
Michael Jackson commissioned fantasy art about himself that defies description; one of the pieces resembles a Communist Chinese propaganda poster with Comrade Michael leading the oppressed children of the world…just check out the pieces and imagine how much he spent on this stuff. I’m thinking of a Botticelli-like painting like that first one with Bernie [...]
I have been listening to enough rants, hate and nonsense in the last year and a half to last me a lifetime or more, and I’ve been more than fed up with it all. But I started realizing that this sort of crud is endemic; uninformed people who choke off their sources of information to [...]
Various reports that the WPA wireless security systems have been broken pretty thoroughly, which is a big reason why my home wireless setup is top of the line on encryption. This is a problem because some older laptops won’t handle it, and in the *brief* time such laptops are around, I have to either come [...]
ORPHAN: My readers quietly passed along some information on this still-yet-to-open movie that I trashed earlier…and a little more information on a personal note. Susan talked to Mere, and she got the impression from Meredith that the sheer scariness of the poster got to Mere more than anything else. Arthur passed along this article from [...]
New blasphemy criminalization law passed by the Irish Parliament. “Under the changes, the maximum fine for blasphemy will be cut from €100,000 to €25,000.” Gee, thanks.
John Ensign has decided that he’s not resigning his seat, he’s running for re-election and he’s expecting the voters to forget it as soon after Britney Spears is killed in a love-suicide pact with Lindsey Lohan and CNN spends a week of coverage on the aftermath as possible. Well, whatever keeps his dad’s and the [...]
The short version seems to be that it’s unlikely without further explosions that Gov. Sanford of South Carolina will be forced to quit his job over the whole affair-affair, but it’s pretty certain that his political future is totally destroyed. This review from the South Carolina paper The State puts it in a nutshell, without [...]