I can't believe a web search still turns up no evidence that anyone else has thought of this obvious rejoinder to the NRA bumper sticker:

I'll give up my gun when they pry it from my child's cold dead hands.

Well, technically, I entered the 21st century already carrying a cell phone, and it might even have been a current model by an accident of timing.  And this isn't my first upgrade since then.  But one of the characteristics of the 21st century is that not upgrading every couple of years means making do with significantly less capability.  It's not ( Read more... )

After celebrating Yule with some friends and then having a three day weekend to relax, I used yesterday to catch up on some things I've been meaning to do, since it was a two-day federal holiday.  Anyway, the end of the year seems like a good time for unfinished business.  I was able to make a small dent in my to do list ( Read more... )

As most of us know, the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution says "Congress is not allowed to pass a law about establishing a religion", or words to that effect. The exact words are "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

There's a current petition to the White House proposing to reverse the decision in the McCarthy ( Read more... )

About a million people must have blogged about the first 2012 U.S. Presidential debate by now, but let me make a few observations that might be made by a hypothetical alien anthropologist receiving our TV signals but not understanding the complexities of the discourse (if you can call it that).

1. Most obviously, the candidates were dressed identically ( Read more... )

One of my father's favorite comic strips was also one of my least favorites; I found it offensive more often than funny.  The central theme of the entire strip was to poke fun of, or at best condescend to, a minority group I belonged to at the time.  I'm no longer a member of said target group, but I never became a member of the target demographic ( Read more... )

I've thought from time to time about the Childs-Helton filk song about women in space, which Barry still performs to this day, at least in the context of the OVFF Farewell Jam.  There's something about it that vaguely bothers me, and I used to think it might be that these days it's thoroughly outdated, because women have been going to space for a ( Read more... )

I'm currently reading The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
( Read more... )

It may be unfair to nitpick the science depicted in old "sci-fi" movies (like we did in the con suite, where giant bug movies played throughout the weekend) or Star Trek (like I did in "Mutant Generations"), or in typical filk songs.  All of those, after all, are meant for entertainment.  But I did comment on two works at Consonance that had a ( Read more... )

Ever notice how there seem to be more filk bands than members of filk bands? They rearrange themselves into different identities, like the Tines in the Verner Vinge book I'm currently reading (and its prequel), only that isn't quite the right metaphor,
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