So I thought I’d make another loaf of bread with my new gadget, this time a Scandinavian Light Rye. I happily measured, poured, and placed the ingredients in order in the bread pan and turned it on to the appropriate size and time. Then I realized I’d skipped a line in the recipe and forgotten …
In the wake of the news that Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from house arrest after years of detention, I wonder what the hell the generals are thinking? Late in the evening, the government broadcast a brief report saying Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi had been freed without conditions. But NPR reports that …
It prints an article about research which has told us just how cats drink water. It’s actually pretty fascinating if you’ve ever watched your cat crouch in front of a water bowl (or a faucet, for that matter). For one thing, while a cat’s tongue has hairs used for grooming, the tip is smooth. I …
In the past two days I’ve gotten 543 spam comments from the domain netlogs.com. Now that’s persistence!
If Obama goes along with this set of proposals from the Bowles-Simpson Commission, thereby gutting Social Security in exchange for very little, I’m going to conclude that not only is he not a liberal, he’s not even a Democrat. As Digby says: If he ends up signing on to deep cuts in social security in …
The “Deficit” Commission’s chairmen issued a set of draft proposals (I put that in quotes because the proposals do not make any sense if the goal is to reduce the deficit). They suggest a whole string of things that are politically impossible or ridiculously small: cutting earmarks (less than 1% of the federal budget) Send …
I have Connie Willis’s All Clear in my hot little hands, and I’m on the waiting list for Bujold’s Cryoburn. The former is the continuation of Willis’s Blackout, which I read earlier this year. It’s not precisely a sequel; the book got too big and she and her publisher agreed to publish it in two …
Back on October 22 I went out and turned the key in the car’s ignition and got zip. Just that awful “click.” I managed to find a neighbor to jump it for me (with my cables; I learned long ago that it’s very useful to have one’s own cables) and went down to Sears, where …
In a post discussing deficits Yglesias says But the question is: What about deficits matters? You often hear deficits discussed as a kind of morality play. Government should “live within its means,” whatever that means. Or else you hear conservatives — who don’t care even the slightest bit about deficits — complain about “deficits” when …
Because Phil Gramm and Arthur Laffer, two of the biggest behind-the-scenes contributors to America’s financial problems, are arguing in favor of the motion that government is strangling the American Spirit. This on the radio program Intelligence Squared, which shows up every other Sunday on my public radio station. Unfortunately, the people on the other side …