Archive for the ‘Raised Eyebrows Dept.’ Category
Leading Evangelical Paid for Gay Sex
Yet another conservative, anti-gay, religious hypocrite bites the … dust: Ted Haggard, one of the most prominent evangelical pastors in the nation, resigned today as president of the National Association of Evangelicals amid allegations that he carried on a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute. Haggard, founder of the 14,000-member New Life Church, has […]
In: All, Current Events, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Naked Gardening
I am not the most avid gardener at the best of times — as the state of our yard will attest. Nevertheless, I do enjoy the results sometimes of putting in the effort, and I'm always interested in seeing how plants grow. Nature continues to amaze me. So, I was a bit disappointed to discover, […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Halifax Gay Pride with Police
Isn't this a delightfully cheery headline to see in a Canadian newspaper: Police force joins gay pride parade Just imagine seeing that in a US newspaper! This happened in Halifax, Nova Scotia, known hotbed of gay rights activists. (Remember those two Mounties who were to be married this summer?) As reported by the Chronicle Herald* […]
It Takes Balls to Navigate
I'm reading a somewhat odd book at the moment: A People's History of Science.* As you might surmise, the book has an attitude and a rather overt agenda but, aside from occasional philosophical inconsistencies on the part of the author, it's more interesting than annoying so far. At any rate, the author was talking about […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Abso-Bork-ly Amazing
Via Josh Rosenau ("Respect for Dissent"), we find that Robert Bork can still say the most amazing and alarming things. Quoting others quoting Bork writing in the National Review: Liberty in America can be enhanced by reinstating, legislatively, restraints upon the direction of our culture and morality. Censorship as an enhancement of liberty may seem […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Meanwhile in Missouri….
Now we turn to John Mills, KMOV News 4 in St. Louis, for the latest from the Missouri state legislature: Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name Christianity the state's official "majority" religion. […] The resolution would recognize "a Christian god," and it would not protect minority religions, but "protect the […]
Of Nipples & Coal Miners
CBS was fined $550,000 for showing Janet Jackson's right nipple on live television. Coal mines that endanger the lives of their workers are commonly fined $60 per violation. [Cenk Uygur, "Janet Jackson's Nipple versus the Lives of Coal Miners", The Huffington Post, 3 March 2006.]
The Young Queen
A friend sent a link to a video of a performance by a young teenage boy of Mozart's notorious "Queen of the Night" aria. It's amazing, but not only from the dancing-bear angle. His voice is a bit young sounding compared to the expected mature-soprano voice, but his pitch is impeccable — not an easy […]
In: All, Music & Art, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Brown Accuses
Via Pam's House Blend ("The Lying Bastards in the White House"), this fascinating quotation from an AP story: …[Former FEMA director Michael] Brown's appearance in front of the Senate investigative panel came as new documents reveal that 28 federal, state and local agencies — including the White House — reported levee failures on Aug. 29 […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Death Promotes Life?
Speaking of humpty-dumptyism, Josh Rosenau* pointed out this curiously overt example to issue from the mouth of Kansas Senator Brownback# If use of the death penalty is contrary to promoting a culture of life, we need to have a national dialogue and hear both sides of the issue. Fascinating. —– * Josh Roseanau, "Brownback confused […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Such Language!
Bush "Bracing for Impeachment"
According to an article ("Impeachment hearings: The White House prepares for the worst", Insight, 23–29 January 2006) published by the conservative publisher of The Washington Times: The Bush administration is bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress. The article — surprisingly — makes it sound quite plausible, in fact, that The Bush administration is bracing for […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Unfortunate Boosterism
Surely you remember all those magnetic ribbons that were far more popular on the rears of cars a few months ago than they are now? All those yellow "support our troops" ribbons, followed by red, white, and blue "support america" ribbons, and then pink ribbons and green ribbons and camouflage ribbons (I'm not kidding)…. Why, […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Indiana U-Turn
What are we to make of this? On 4 October we got news from Indiana that State Representative Patricia Miller proposed to save un-made babies from un-fit parents: INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana legislative committee is considering a bill that would prohibit gays, lesbians and single people in Indiana from using medical science to assist them […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
Representative Mediocrity
Harriet Miers: cronyism or representative mediocrity? When Richard Nixon, no fan of the Supreme Court, nominated the forgettable G. Harrold Carswell thirty-five years ago, Senator Roman Hruska defended the nomination with an unforgettable bit of wisdom: “Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Repeal the Second Law?
There is one major achievement of ninteenth-century science — namely, thermodynamics — that neither had significant practical application of which the public were aware nor penetrated the imagination of HMS [= "l'homme moyen sensuel" i.e., "the average man"]. To HMS the subject seems abstruse, and irrelevant to daily life. Moreover, it lacks visual appeal. One […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
State of Mind of State
Oddly, at the end of their article commenting on that little pee-pee note that Bush wrote to Condi while sitting in a UN meeting, The Scotsman commented: In January, a sheet of doodles sparked a debate on the state of Tony Blair's mind, even though it turned out the note was created by the Microsoft […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Who Makes What Most?
What in most fetuses turns either into a penis and scrotum or a clitoris and labia can also develop into something in between. And while most babies are born with either ovaries or testicles, some are born with both, or one of each. Many cultures have categories for such in-between people; in India, for instance, […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Poor Oil Companies
It seems fitting to paraphrase Barbara Bush and say that things seem to be working out pretty well for the poor oil companies: Oil companies came under new fire yesterday when it emerged that ExxonMobil's profits are likely to soar above $10 billion this quarter on the back of the fuel crisis. That's $110 million […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
Did He or Didn't He?
Well, this is silly. Kartina made landfall on Monday, 29 August. The "enormous gay rights celebration", known as "Southern Decadence", takes place on Memorial-Day weekend, which is to say it didn't even get started until 5 days later. As I've pointed out before, if He was really so upset with New Oreans over the homo […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
DMort Estimates
A co-owner of Shelbyville-based Gowen-Smith Chapel has been deployed to Gulfport, Miss., to help with recovery since Hurricane Katrina, and his business partner here has described the grim task there. "DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies," Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.