The dreams of dogs
Have you ever wondered what it must be like being a dog?
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Saturday Video Roundup: Get lucky!
Periodically I like to surf through YouTube for interesting song mashups, which are as pure a postmodern art form as exists. Today was one of those days, so here, for your listening pleasure, are some things that go together like peanut butter and basketball. Up first, Ozzy vs. a-ha. Folks, this just ain’t right.
Read moreOur psychopath Congress
Government shutdown, debt crisis reveal how much GOP has in common with other sociopaths… Is this to be an empathy test? Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil. Involuntary dilation of the iris? I believe Philip K. Dick had it right in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Technology had, in that not-so-distant future, created androids that were
Read moreBetter and betterer: the new and improved S&R
Hi folks. I wanted to take a moment to tell you about some changes here at S&R that we think you might like. The first one you probably already noticed: we’ve tweaked our design a bit. We did so for a big reason. When we made our last design update we didn’t really understand how it was going to affect
Read moreStewart Hoover on Pope Francis and the Roman Catholic Church: give it a read
Ross Douthat misses the point: the institution of the church is no longer central to the practice of religion It wasn’t long after I entered my doctoral program some 20 years ago that professors and fellow students alike noticed in me a certain proclivity for polemic and outright cage-rattling. My instinctive tendency to leaven insight with attitude was on display
Read morePope Francis: I can’t believe the Cardinals haven’t murdered the crazy bastard yet
Progressive reformer can’t be what the College of Cardinals expected… I don’t traditionally care for popes. The Roman Catholic Church has this really long history of promoting oppression and corruption and ignorance, and there’s the whole pedophilia thing, too. I’m hard pressed to think of an organization that done more raw damage in the entirety of recorded history, and that
Read moreOpen letter to Sinéad O’Connor re: the Miley Cyrus controversy
Dear Sinéad, Let me begin with a compliment. Your letter to Miley Cyrus the other day was spot on in its articulation of the corporate music machine dynamic and the way it uses people, especially, pretty women, to its own amoral ends. Your employ of words like “prostitute” and “pimp” was as accurate and appropriate as it was provocative.
Read moreItalian football sanctions AC Milan over fan insensitivity
The Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (FIGC), the governing body of football in Italy, just broke bad on AC Milan over its supporters abusive behavior. Gab Marcotti at ESPN FC explains. The Italian FA charged Milan for the fact that some of their fans engaged in racist abuse during Sunday night’s match against Napoli. In accordance with the regulations, the stand
Read moreDear Comcast: get your shit together
Comcast owes me an hour. As in, 60 or so minutes of my life that I’ll never get back because of their phalanx of … poorly trained customer service people. When I moved to Seattle I did all I could to take advantage of their “easy transfer of service” promise. Things started going wrong when I called them a week
Read more(Shed End) Seattle Diary: I was wrong (and Mikel scores!)
Last weekend I was near despair. As I wrote Sunday, I had marched forth in search of a Chelsea FC community here in my new city only to come up empty. Given the vibrance of the Rocky Mountain Blues supporters club in Denver, I was not exaggerating when I explained the emptiness and disappointment I was feeling. Within a couple
Read moreUEFA okays moving 2022 World Cup to winter: who could possibly have seen this coming?
UEFA (the governing body of European football) has given its tentative approval to moving the 2022 World Cup to the winter. The prospect of a winter World Cup in 2022 took a step forward after European football chiefs agreed a summer event could not be played in Qatar. Summer temperatures in the Gulf state can reach 50C, sparking health fears
Read moreConspiracy theory: did Wayne Rooney and David Moyes play Jose Mourinho?
Periodically friends will accuse me of being “pure evil.” I cherish these moments, and am proud of the fact that my mind goes where no demented mind has gone before. But it can be something of a plague, because there’s this part of me that thinks if I’m that sinister, other people must be, too. This quality has not rendered
Read moreSeattle Diary: if you have a community, do not take it for granted
When my marriage fell apart in 2010 I quickly realized just how much of my social life was tied to my wife’s friends and family. I had friends of my own, of course, but most were married with families, or they lived way the hell out in the ‘burbs. Very few were of the “let’s go grab a quick beer”
Read moreDear NSA: I need a little help with this Obama/Putin Nobel Peace Prize post
Dear NSA. You probably saw Russ’s piece yesterday on Vlad Putin being a possible for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah, I know, what a hoot, right? And you saw my comment on how they might as well give it to him because they jumped the shark when they gave it to Obama in 2009. Anyway, this got me to thinking
Read moreIt’s hard to believe this one happened in Iowa instead of the South
I mean, come on, this has Texas written all over it, don’t you think? Iowa grants gun permits to the blind No one questions the legality of the permits, but some officials worry about public safety. DES MOINES, Iowa — Here’s some news that has law enforcement officials and lawmakers scratching their heads: Iowa is granting permits to acquire or
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