I don’t know whether I’m right about any of this. Let’s get that straight right off the bat. But here’s what I’ve been thinking about, and it may be too long to bother editing, so please forgive the typos and unclear language. The more I read history, the more I see that people are similar […]
Author Archive | weeklyrob
Israel Thwarted Due to Its Humanity
The BBC reports that Palestinians stopped a planned air strike because protesters surrounded the house that was to be hit (link). The IDF decided not to strike, because it didn’t want to kill all the civilians (or it didn’t want the publicity headache of killing them). It’s unclear (because the article left it unclear) whether […]
Silliest Theory of the Week (Plus Bonus Thoughts!)
Noting that germ-killing products are all the rage, Allen Salkin in the New York Times (link) present us with an example of journalists scrabbling to find an angle to an otherwise boring story. Why are so many people buying (questionably effective) lotions, creams, water ionizers, UV wands, and other weapons of mini destruction? Is it […]
Three XXXXX Mice No Longer Fear Farmer’s Wife
This is fantastic. (Link) [End of Post]
High Tech
Imagine a device that knows your sleep cycles and your schedule. Example: It knows you need to be up around 8:00 a.m., but it also knows that you’re in the middle of a dream at that time. Or that you’re in the middle of a deep sleep cycle (is that the same as a dream?). […]
Fuck
[Too busy to think, so I’m posting yet another old thought of mine from YOY.] Should certain words, devoid of sexual meaning, be banned from TV or radio? Take the word, “fuck,†for instance. When used to mean, “have sex,†it can be argued that it’s obscene. But when you use it like, “that was […]
North Korea as Human Rights Issue
When it turned out that Saddam Hussein wasn’t on the phone to bin Laden working out a plan to nuke the US, a lot of people shifted their argument for invading Iraq. Namely, it’s good we went in there, because Saddam was such a bad guy. This is interesting, because everyone agrees that he’s a […]
Boo!
I’m all for scary costumes. Ghosts and vampires, blood, dread, fear, death, mayhem, madness. And horrific pumpkins (link). My wife likes smiles on her pumpkins, so she carved the one above. I like to take no more than 2 minutes to carve mine, and I like to use the stems as ears, or noses, or […]
Should You Vote?
My friend Garry has often said that people who don’t know anything shouldn’t vote. Actually, I think he’d go as far as to give literacy tests, intelligence tests, and tests of political knowledge. If you don’t care enough to be aware, then you shouldn’t be voting. Kevin, over at szuping.com (link on the main page) […]
Read Slower
I’m reading Ragtime, by E.L. Doctorow. I won’t go into how Ragtime is different from other novels in its delivery or subject-matter, and I won’t detail the sudden and unexpected raunchy moments. But while reading a couple of pages today, I twice stopped to appreciate the writing. 1. Harry Houdini (yes, the escape artist) is […]