Bread & Circuses (Updated)

Is it just me, or does anyone else think this Hero Pilot stuff is spinning out of control?  I dunno, it hits me as wrong.  Mawkish, lowest common denominator, on-display-for-your-beer-guzzling-delectation wrong. I’m surprised Sullenberger’s going along with all this.  It’s like Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche: real pilots don’t strut around like peacocks when they […]

I See Two Tubes . . . No, a Series of Tubes!

From 1981, a news report both touching and chilling: touching in its enthusiasm for the future, chilling in its failure to recognize an implicit threat. Oh, and I loved the part where the guy talks about being able to print what he sees on the screen!  Why, you can PRINT IT ON PAPER!  God we […]

Did I Call It or What?

My September 2007 prediction on the upcoming Sirius/XM satellite radio merger: Okay, one more and then I’m done: the Blues Channel on Sirius Radio.  How come they have such a restricted playlist?  It’s the same old stuff, all the time, and never any new blues.  Apparently they’d rather spend my subscription money on executive salaries, not […]

Shape of Earth — Views Differ

In the comment thread to my Choosing Day post, I responded to a reader by saying, in part: “In the weeks leading up to Nov 4th, I’d see polls on the internet that consistently showed Obama winning the electoral count with considerably over 300 votes to McCain with 170 or so. Yet the media felt […]

Sunday Notes

Dropping ballast in anticipation of retirement: satellite radio.  Talk about not living up to promises.  When I listen to Sirius today, not only do I hear the exact same playlists of songs I heard five years ago (particularly on the Blues Channel, my one-time favorite), I hear commercials.  Yeah, terrestrial radio is ten times worse, […]

Scare Tactics and Scams

Listened to Nice Polite Republicans most of the day, and all I heard was scare talk.  We’re going to lose our savings, our 401Ks, our IRAs.  Putting the money in the mattress won’t work because that’ll cause hyperinflation and a cup of Starbucks’ll cost 6.5 million.  Unless we do something quick.  Unless we give this […]

The Anthrax Assassin

We are meant to think, apparently, that Bruce Ivins, the civilian US Army scientist who committed suicide after becoming the FBI’s main suspect in the 2001 anthrax killings, was guilty.  He was an insider, he had access to anthrax, he was brilliant but troubled, he had a long history of making homicidal threats, he exhibited […]