A Boy and His Dog

Dear Mac Developers...

2011-04-07T06:35:00.001-04:00

Dear Mac Developers, I like the Mac App Store and would prefer not to have to buy software elsewhere because of the convenience, the permanence, and the ability to install already-purchased software on either of my Macs connected to the Internet. In fact, I've already held off buying software a couple of times because it wasn't available in the Mac App Store. I strongly suspect I'm not the

Libya and Online News Streaming Video

2011-02-21T16:42:00.000-05:00

Ever since Drudge Report started reporting that Qaddafi had fled Tripoli, I've been trying to find news. Nobody seems to be confirming this, which Drudge apparently based on a single Reuters news report about statements by a single British diplomat. CNN, MSNBC, and Fox all seem to be concentrating on Madison, Wisconsin but it turns out that Al Jazeera English Service has an online streaming web

New Kindle for Mac App

2010-10-16T18:47:00.000-04:00

I am excited to see that there's an updated Kindle client for the Mac OS. The new version allows you to access, modify, and add to your book highlights and notes. If you're reading a book that leads you to take extensive notes, it really should be easier with an actual keyboard than the virtual keyboard on the iPad or the chiclet keyboard on the Amazon Kindle dedicated reader. Neato mosquito!

"Please sir, may I have some more?"

2010-09-06T11:40:00.000-04:00

Washington Post: "Obama calls for $50 billion more in infrastructure spending". Hello, my name is Barack and I am a spendaholic. I just can't quit spending money the country doesn't have. I am congenitally unable to stop throwing insane amounts of borrowed money down the rat hole. I am the most disgusting excuse for a chief executive since Jimmy Carter. I want my party to lose majorities in

Digital Minimalism

2010-08-28T12:51:00.000-04:00

This article from London Evening Standard is the second such article I've run across in the past weeks. The idea is to completely jettison all of your stuff -- except for MacBook, iPad, and iPhone. You keep your books, music, photos on your local portable computer and "in the cloud" and you don't have anything else to weigh you down. The other article described someone more extreme: the guy had

74 Days 'til Election Day

2010-08-20T16:21:00.000-04:00

My, how the roles have been reversed. Buffalo Springfield said it best: "There's something happening here What it is ain't exactly clear There's a man with a gun over there Telling me I got to beware I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound Everybody look what's going down There's battle lines being drawn Nobody's right if everybody's wrong Young people speaking their minds

Obama is Right About the Mosque Near Ground Zero

2010-08-14T15:34:00.002-04:00

President Obama has gotten himself into some hot water with comments he made last night about the right of Muslims to build a mosque near ground zero. Far be it from me to defend this S.O.B. in anything -- but he is right in this case. Let's get the fact said and out of the way that it is puzzling and dismaying that there are some Muslims who actually want to build a mosque near a place of shame

Neologism of the Day: "Fatuosity"

2010-07-06T15:41:00.000-04:00

From the "I kid you not" department: NASA's primary mission, now that we don't have a manned space program anymore and no prospect of ever having one again, is to try to persuade Muslims that they're not losers. (They're not, but that's not because they led the world in culture and learning a thousand years ago.) It's not enough to maim our nation's economy for at least a generation, The One

Stupidity, Arrogance and Mulishness -- Are They All the Same Thing?

2010-07-01T16:07:00.001-04:00

Is Obama really this stupid? Does he really not see the speeding freight train heading straight at him on election day? Does he really not comprehend that people are mad as hell?

Truman Fired MacArthur

2010-06-22T15:37:00.003-04:00

Truman fired MacArthur. And -- more to the point -- Carter fired Singlaub. They had to. You know it. I know it.

Liberal Intelligentsia

2010-05-29T17:06:00.002-04:00

In a Byron York piece from early this morning: "Sestak was ineligible for job Clinton offered". To wit: "In a little-noticed passage Friday, the New York Times reported that Rep. Joe Sestak was not eligible for a place on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, the job he was reportedly offered by former President Bill Clinton. And indeed a look at the Board’s website reveals this

Digital Longevity

2010-05-22T11:26:00.001-04:00

I've been working on a project over the past few months to upload my family/genealogy videos to "the cloud" so as to be able to access them anywhere and to add another layer of protection against bit rot, house fire, future indifference, etc. I already have them on my home computer and also backed up to a co-located external Firewire/USB hard drive using Apple's "Time Machine" software. For

Kindle App Now Available for iPad

2010-04-03T15:57:00.000-04:00

Okay, this is significant: Kindle App Officially Available in iTunes. Any previous investment in time, money, personal notes and highlights in Kindle books is not lost! This is important and I believe it may have the effect of solidifying Amazon's early lead in the ebook business. There are two things to consider. Pro: Amazon is a bookstore while iTunes has a bookstore bolted onto it. Con:

Disjointed But Recurring Thoughts, Version 20100220

2010-02-20T11:23:00.001-05:00

I purchased 200 GB of space from Google a few weeks ago (currently $50/year) and am in the process of moving all my genealogy-related photos and videos to Picasa. I already use Google Docs for my genealogy research. Google keeps multiple copies at multiple locations all over the world and, it seems to me, that this is the closest I can currently come to having my genealogy work always available

Ben Nelson is an oinking pig.

2009-12-21T18:27:00.002-05:00

The latest from the hoodlums running the most ethical congress in history. Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Kent Conrad, Max Baucus, Chris Dodd, admitted "democratic socialist" Bernie Sanders and their sweetheart deals with Harry Reid. The leaders of our country, ladies and gentlemen. I could find Ben Nelson's perfidy more bearable if he wasn't using the pro-life platform as the starting position

The Grinch was Politically Correct!

2009-11-30T20:43:00.000-05:00

This post is written in a more light-hearted spirit than many of the rants with which I indulge myself on this, my blog. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights sent out an email today that sounds much like several they've sent in the past several years: "Catholic League president Bill Donohue opines as follows: · The menorah in Nashville’s Riverfront Park is okay by the ACLU, but

Has E.J. Dionne Been in a Coma Since 2000?

2009-11-30T20:24:00.004-05:00

Here's a quote from one of the most jaw-dropping op-eds I've read in the Washington Post: "The most surprising and disappointing aspect of our politics is how little pushback there has been against the vile, extremist rhetoric that has characterized such a large part of the anti-Obama movement..."It was written by E.J. Dionne, who I've read somewhat often since moving to the Washington, DC area

Pondering the Exploitation of Adjunct Faculty

2009-11-26T18:36:00.001-05:00

There's a great blog post at National Review by Victor Davis Hanson from this afternoon. It pretty much summarizes the gray socialism that is the humanities in academia. "Some animals are more equal than others," according to one Eric Blair. And it's worth pointing out that the left in academia is a huge influence in government policy these days. So if we were to abolish a corrupt tenure

The Manhattan Declaration

2009-11-21T20:46:00.000-05:00

I saw a news story about this organization last night. Most of the Catholic names among the original signers of The Manhattan Declaration are familiar to me and I respect them. I also respect the other names that I recognize on the original list. This appears to be an organization worthy of support. These are times that seem to many to sufficiently differ from what has been seen in the past to

VA + NJ + NY23 = ????

2009-11-03T17:09:00.002-05:00

It's obviously too early at the time of this writing for any election returns this evening. But whatever the outcome I have an opinion and since this is my blog, I'm gonna give it to you! Now I'm completely lacking in interpersonal skills, but even I know that if you insult voters with vile and obscene terms, such as "teabagger", those voters are likely to get mad. In fact they're likely to

Is Rick Crandall the Worst Person in the World?

2009-10-03T09:11:00.003-04:00

Are he and his wife the worst people in the world? Dismayingly, no. There are lots of people just like them. I don't know why this particular article shocked me so much -- it is no secret that the world is run by narcissists. Maybe it occurred to me that the WSJ article surely would not have been written if these two brats had not (obviously) sought publicity for this monument to their

I Always Come Back to Firefox

2009-09-09T11:32:00.005-04:00

Just recently updated my Mac from Leopard to Snow Leopard (OS X version 10.5 to version 10.6) and am quite happy with the bump in speed. Although the OS boots by default into a 32-bit kernel (it is possible to boot into a 64-bit kernel for servers and specialized desktops), it is now able to run 64-bit apps. This apparently makes it possible for apps to address the vastly larger memory spaces

Does Ted Kennedy Have a Right to a Catholic Funeral?

2009-08-27T16:01:00.003-04:00

Interesting. Linked is an article, claimed to be based on canon law, which argues in favor of it, albeit with a large dosage of Pepto Bismol. Do not speak ill of the dead, but for crying out loud, the faster we move on, the better.Most of Teddy Kennedy's politics, and most of whatever parts of his personal life I knew through the media, angered and sometimes even disgusted me. But my opinions

HOWTO: Google Reader to Evernote

2009-08-15T18:06:00.002-04:00

My latest favorite genealogy (and every other kind of packrat) tool is Evernote. The Evernote blog just posted on how to send Google Reader articles to Evernote!"A lot of my web life can be broadly classified as research: recipes, drool-worthy gadgets, lifehacking ideas, articles to read, etc. Much of that stuff enter my consciousness through Google Reader. The usual workflow is something

Twitter-Based Mashup

2009-08-06T16:10:00.002-04:00

Here's an interesting site: Geochirp.com. See what people are tweeting about in a user-defined radius of your location. Examples: I just searched on "Evernote" (my latest toy) in a 50-mile radius, which includes Washington, DC. Other good search terms, picked out of the air, for no particular reason: "Pelosi", "swastika", "flowers", "butterflies", "socialism", ...

Nancy Pelosi Says Town Hall Protestors Are Carrying Swastikas

2009-08-06T16:01:00.006-04:00

What more can be said? Can anybody really defend this statement? And, given her history, can anybody really defend the idea of this person as Speaker of the House of Representatives? My opinion is that this is emblematic of a huge, huge problem that seems to be only getting worse. All we can do is wait for the 2010 election. Crush the left in 2010!

The Authorities Want Snitches

2009-08-04T15:57:00.002-04:00

Perhaps you've seen the news today about the White House asking people to write in to report people circulating "fishy" information about health insurance reform proposals. The address to write is flag@whitehouse.gov. Here's mine:SUBJ: Something fishy about health careHi, I just saw news reports about the White House call for email to report "fishy" information being circulated about health

Racism?

2009-08-03T15:59:00.004-04:00

The, ah, progressives are upset about a new wave of guerrilla art in Los Angeles. When I lived in L.A., I almost made special trips up to Westwood in order to get the latest issue of LA Weekly. Hey, I was in my twenties, this stuff is profound when you're in your twenties! Anyway, one Steven Mikulan, writing on the LA Weekly website has already played the race card: "Obama is in white face,

"Populations We Don't Want Too Many Of"

2009-07-09T16:27:00.003-04:00

See, when SCOTUS justices become senile -- or stop caring whether people know the truth about them or not -- they don't retire, they just run their mouths more. And say what they mean, I guess. Wonder which populations Justice Ginsburg considers untermensch?

Humor: The Church Militant

2009-07-03T13:31:00.005-04:00

Heh! This picture (from fisheaters.com) just struck my funny bone.P.S. Non-Catholics: Here are definitions of the Church Militant, Suffering, and Triumphant. The link may also be of use to Catholics victimized by "catechesis" inflicted as a result of "The Spirit of Vatican II" during the sixties, seventies, and (I understand) the eighties.

Puzzlement About AT&T Navigator for iPhone 3GS

2009-07-02T17:19:00.002-04:00

Like about a bazillion other iPhone users, I received an email from AT&T this morning advertising their new spoken-word turn-by-turn GPS "Navigator" app for the iPhone. The app is free but the subscription costs ten bucks a month. What the hell? The iPhone already provides text-based turn-by-turn navigation using free Google maps. Current position is already calculated on-board the iPhone by

George Bush Wasn't So Dumb

2009-06-27T17:42:00.005-04:00

Let's see: North Korea continues to go nuts, even on Obama's watch; Iran continues to be run by gangsters, even on Obama's watch; Obama now wants to hold terrorists indefinitely, and ... just what the heck WERE you paying attention to for the past eight years, Mister President? Did it REALLY never occur to you and your entourage that maybe, just maybe, Dubya was smarter than you thought? And

Interesting Blogs

2009-06-06T09:43:00.005-04:00

I recently added an interesting blog to my overflowing Google Reader RSS list: Classical Bookworm. Looks like it is updated every few weeks or so but it just strikes me as a really, really neat blog, in much the same way A&L Daily is an interesting web site. I don't check in all the time, but I always find something neat when I do.As a weirdly revealing aside, the photo in this blog post was

Google Adding Macros to Online Apps

2009-05-30T11:32:00.003-04:00

Google is testing a significant new function in their online office apps. See here for a YouTube video. I've been writing/using/evolving MS Excel macros in Windows quite a bit lately and this feature in the Google spreadsheet apps will be interesting to try out. MS Office "macros" are actually VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) scripts and the Google spreadsheet version is Javascript.

Star Trek

2009-05-10T08:02:00.006-04:00

No, I didn't go see Star Trek this weekend. There's only one Star Trek and that ain't it. The real Star Trek was the one that ran in syndication when I was in junior high school. It came on a half-hour after school let out and it enthralled my friends and me and we had a great time discussing the minutiae. We were in our early teens, for crying out loud. Then I grew up. The original series

0Bama's Alberto Gonzales

2009-04-22T15:53:00.008-04:00

The contest over just which 0Bama cabinet member has found himself or herself in way, way over his or her head, has apparently been made. Before you guess wildly, figuring they pretty much all fit that description, see if you can guess whose voice this is..."I can't talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here's the future. The future is we have borders." Think you know now? It's the same

Jewish Culture

2009-04-19T18:27:00.005-04:00

I just finished a very interesting book by Norman Podhoretz called Ex-Friends. He's one of the neocons, a label that must be spoken with special venom in Obama's America. The book is about his break with other famous leftist literati in and about New York when he began his political swing from the anti-Stalin left (which often meant pro-Trotsky left) to America-first neoconservatism. The "

Texas Secede! is Dumb

2009-04-17T15:57:00.002-04:00

The Texas secession "issue" is out and about again. Only this seems to be the first time that I heard about it while not actually in the state of Texas. Back when I was going to school in Austin, it was fashionable for drunk UT students and drunk rednecks to shout "Secede!" at the honky tonk on Saturday nights. Then we'd sing "I wanna go home with the armadillo" and "Up against a wall, redneck

I Like Butterflies and Sunny Days

2009-04-15T19:05:00.001-04:00

No, really! I even Google for them!

Anderson Cooper's Vile Joke

2009-04-15T16:48:00.004-04:00

Crack CNN anchor Anderson Cooper made a funny joke about the tax protest "Tea Parties" going on today. I laffed and laffed when I heard it. It was as funny as... a "your mother is a whore" joke? No, that's not it. A joke about people dying of horrible diseases? No, that's offensive, everybody knows that. A joke about concentration camp cuisine? No, same deal. A joke that depends on simple

The Enemies List

2009-04-15T15:45:00.011-04:00

The Nixon Obama Administration has issued an enemies list, according to this Washington Times story. Really, it doesn't take much imagination to conceive that "people who disagree with us" could easily be construed as "right-wing extremists". And the the political appointees in this administration have as little imagination as anyone I've seen. Has anybody else been listening to the anti-war

Biden Makes Stuff Up. Again.

2009-04-11T17:10:00.001-04:00

Sheesh, this guy's a dick. You'd think Obama would have him tied up and gagged in the White House basement by now.

I Can Too Say Something Nice About President Obama

2009-04-10T09:19:00.004-04:00

Just in case you thought I was suffering from Bush Obama Derangement Syndrome, here is proof that it IS possible for me to approve of something the president is doing. Here's a link to a news story about how the "stimulus" is providing 2.4 gigadollars (American) to develop electric cars and infrastructure. This is definitely what government should be doing and I look forward to seeing an

"Standing Athwart History and Yelling Stop!"

2009-04-05T18:23:00.004-04:00

More visual content for my blog, which turns out to be more entertaining but isn't my own. Hat tip to Powerline Blog. The title of the post is a famous Buckleyism.

Drip, drip, drip, drip....

2009-03-27T15:53:00.004-04:00

The New York Slimes is hemorrhaging. While the rich trust fund kids who own the paper may have to cut back on private jet travel, the smug little twerps who write on the news and editorial pages (but I repeat myself) are actually going to take some financial pain. Revenues are down 10-15% over the past year, and this has been going on for some time. It sucks to be them! Maybe more people

The Culture Wars

2009-03-26T15:28:00.002-04:00

This is chilling to watch and this is what I am afraid of, here in Obama's America. You say that Argentina is a "far-away country", Mr. Chamberlain? Is Canada close enough to worry you? Either way, the infection of intolerance has already crossed the border: the most pro-abortion president ever, and the demonstrated tendency of his far left supporters to suppress anyone who disagrees with them.

Interesting iPhone Software

2009-03-25T20:39:00.002-04:00

I've been using some free iPhone software called Instapaper for a couple of months now and recommend it highly. The idea is that you can quickly and easily save web articles you run across on your computer to your iPhone for later reading. The articles are well-formatted for the iPhone screen and are immediately and comfortably readable with no tapping or pinching to get the text aligned and at

Henry V Today, or, Dodd Man Walking

2009-03-23T16:03:00.005-04:00

Power Line links to the above frankly inspiring video after seeing the latest polls described as follows."Just as the economic news was relentlessly negative until the last few days, poll numbers for Republicans were horrific for months. So the GOP should be heartened by the first encouraging polling news it has received perhaps since Lehman Brothers defaulted in mid-September: Republicans have

0Bama's Little Helper

2009-03-19T21:09:00.003-04:00

Ever wonder just WHY the new guy is SOOOOOO much SMARTER than the last guy? Why he doesn't seem to misunderestimate anything? Here ya go... (hat tip to Power Line).

Bring Cuba in from the Cold

2009-03-09T15:40:00.005-04:00

The Brits are saying that Obama will begin to open contacts with the Castro government. I say, it's about time. I stopped caring whether Cuba stayed above the waves or not when the Soviets collapsed. And when the Cuban expatriates in Florida stopped making the difference in carrying the state for conservative Presidential candidates, well, that was icing on the cake. So here's a good office

Cool New Project Using iMovie '09

2009-02-28T10:11:00.003-05:00

More symptoms of my genealogy obsessive/compulsive behavior to report: one of my uncles sent me a couple of video tapes of family reunions from 1990 and 2003 and I had them transferred to DVD last week. Now I'm starting to learn iMovie '09 and am having a great time doing it. This will take some effort to get good at it, although iMovie lets you produce decent video right away. Two reasons:

"Bishop" Apologizes for Holocaust Denial

2009-02-26T16:08:00.012-05:00

I don't understand. Zenit reports that "Bishop Richard Williamson, formerly excommunicated member of the Society of St. Pius X, apologized today for statements in which he denied the extent of the [1933-1945 Jewish] holocaust." Of course the holocaust is a fact, but what can this sentence possibly mean?"Bishop" Williamson is no bishop and he's barely a Catholic. He was "ordained" a "bishop" in

Obama's America is "A Nation of Cowards"

2009-02-20T16:15:00.008-05:00

It just keeps getting funnier. Now Obama's Attorney General is calling us a "Nation of Cowards" because "the level of social interaction among people of different races is bleak and that it in many ways does not differ significantly from the country that existed some 50 years ago." So says the first black Attorney General, appointed by the first black President. As annoying as the Examiner is

"Abort Obama, Not the Unborn"

2009-02-19T16:00:00.009-05:00

Un-f***ing-believable. In Obama's America, if you dare to question Groupthink(TM), you will be investigated. And if Big Brother says you're guilty, then by God YOU ARE GUILTY!!! And if he says you're not... well, we'll still be keeping an eye on you.Here's what some others who obviously haven't gotten with the program either think...(link)

Another Gigantic Obama Spending Frenzy

2009-02-18T16:12:00.006-05:00

The Obama socialist spending machine gathers steam. Is there no limit to what the Democrats will spend to try to redeem insane lending practices involving people who had no business getting home loans in the first place? Can a person go bankrupt or can a business fail anymore in America? Are we just going to keep accumulating economic sludge under our fenders until the entire capitalist

Whither America?

2009-02-13T16:05:00.007-05:00

This is very depressing to me. I gotta go buy a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream and watch cartoons. For like the next eight years.

Home Edition of Mathematica Available

2009-02-08T08:11:00.003-05:00

I've written before about my fascination with Mathematica but it has always been way too expensive to have a copy. In its very early days, it was included free with every NeXT computer sold, and it was only a few hundred bucks to buy it otherwise. Consequently, there are quite a few references in Wolfram materials about how "hobbyists" were among the million or so users. Alas, it has been

Kindle 2.0 on February 9???

2009-01-27T15:44:00.001-05:00

Ohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy....!!!!"Rumors of a next-generation Kindle, Amazon's e-book reader, started appearing on the Internet almost as soon as the initial version hit the market. Now, it appears that the company is finally ready to show the world what it's had up its sleeve. The company invited the press to an event it will host on February 9th at a location--the Morgan Library and Museum--

Horrific

2009-01-25T20:01:00.012-05:00

I ran across this photo a few days ago and it keeps eating at me. Isn't this a horrible photo? I'm not talking about the disturbing photo of the decapitated aborted baby, I'm talking about the denial, and maybe even hatred, in the face of the "clergyperson" on the right. It seems to me that Evangelical Christianity, Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, traditional Judaism, Islam -- we are the

Obama Inauguration

2009-01-18T07:21:00.002-05:00

In spite of myself, I too am feeling the excitement of the upcoming Obama inauguration. It is history and it is so nice to feel the nation united again. We haven't felt that since the first few days after 9/11 and the current times are much more positive. So I will think about FOCA and card check and socialist political appointments and eat-the-rich, and an insane spending plan AFTER Tuesday.

Neuhaus Memorial on EWTN Tonight

2009-01-09T21:16:00.004-05:00

I just finished watching a moving memorial for Fr. Richard John Neuhaus on Raymond Arroyo's EWTN show, The World Over. Guests included Michael Novak and George Weigel, close friends of Fr. Neuhaus. By telephone, Joseph Bottum, the current editor of First Things, also contributed. The program reinforced my own realization of the magnitude of the loss and it gave a glimpse of the camaraderie of

Father Richard John Neuhaus, 1936-2009

2009-01-08T15:56:00.004-05:00

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus died this morning. He was great man, a good Catholic priest, loyal to the Pope and to the Magisterium, as all good Catholics are. He fought the mediocrities running the Catholic Church in America over the years with a style that I simply enjoyed reading and hearing. Beginning his public life as a Lutheran minister, he was a close advisor to Martin Luther King,

Music Recommendation: "The Priests"

2009-01-04T14:17:00.003-05:00

Just bought an album download from Amazon.com (MP3, no DRM, and 256 Kbps) called "The Priests". Very beautiful and moving. From what I can tell from their web site, they're three Catholic priests from Ireland who are also tenors.Being a geek, I keep the MP3 files in iTunes and stream them to the powered speakers in another room using AirTunes. 802.11g appears to be have plenty of bandwidth

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

2009-01-02T16:30:00.004-05:00

The quote is by George Orwell and is cited in an interesting post by Michael Novak on the FirstThings magazine web site.Because if there is no truth, no argument is possible in the light of evidence. Under a regime that spouts lies, there is no way to protest in the name of truth. Where truth doesn’t count, conversation is empty. Where truth doesn’t count, persuasion can be no more than seduction

Hitchens versus Maher

2008-12-31T13:17:00.008-05:00

I've always loved to read Christopher Hitchens' stuff although I do tune him out when he talks about religion. And Henry Kissinger. Here's a link to a YouTube video taken from the execrable Bill Maher's show: Bill Unthrilled. (Hat tip to NRO). Hitchens is exactly right in this case and he's been right on Iraq and al Qaeda from the beginning.And on a not-unrelated note, I just finished

Palin's Personal Baggage

2008-12-19T15:40:00.002-05:00

Oh for crying out loud. The mother of the really cool 18-year-old twerp who knocked up Sarah Palin's really smart 17-year-old daughter has been arrested on drug charges. John McCain, whose campaign got a severe case of anemia after locking up the nomination, apparently also did a really shitty job vetting his "vice" presidential pick. It also missed the fun fact that Palin's really cool

Genuinely Cool Software Department (cont.)

2008-11-18T16:08:00.002-05:00

Check this out! I can search Google by speaking into my cell phone! I actually don't mind typing on the iPhone virtual keyboard but this seems to work just as well. It will be interesting to see whether I end up using this in practice over the long term. I'm thinking of the following scenario: Suppose I'm reading a dead tree version of a book and I run across a word I don't know. Since I'm

The One We've Been Waiting For

2008-11-18T15:47:00.004-05:00

For those who've been wondering "just how the HELL did this guy get elected?", YouTube (anecdotally) confirms what your ears have been telling you for the past two years. Swell!

Congratulations to President-Elect Obama!

2008-11-05T16:49:00.003-05:00

Barack Obama won last night and he will be our next president. Conservatives ought to give him a chance and we ought to support him when and where we can. There are important issues on which he must be opposed, such as those involving the sanctity of life. My fears about the war on terror are somewhat quieted by the current state of the Iraq war and the fact that the president-elect has

Obsessive Compulsive Communications Disease

2008-10-31T16:06:00.002-04:00

What is it with me and communications? I just got finished upgrading my Verizon FIOS service (fiber to the home, baby!) and am now getting 20 Mbps/5 Mbps Internet service and "Extreme HD" television service (345 channels, including all available HD channels). I subscribe to XM Radio in my car. I have an Amazon Kindle e-book reader and love it. I no longer lust for a laptop computer because I

What a Helluva Great Speech!

2008-09-04T16:02:00.003-04:00

I just finished watching Gov. Sarah Palin's speech from last night. What a great speech! What a hell of a great speech! What a helluva a great candidate! I can't convey how enthusiastic I am, all over again, having heard her speak, now, for the second time. Time will tell us if she measures up to her rhetoric but, if she does, she really is the new Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. After

McCain Hits One Out of the Park!

2008-08-29T13:20:00.003-04:00

And he did it on so many levels. She's a pro-life, pro-gun, hockey-mom conservative for neanderthals like me. I heard Palin had her fifth child in April --- after finding out that he has Downs Down's Syndrome! This is gonna blow the NARAL and Planned Parenthood commissars outta the water! Tolerance for imperfection in people, with no devaluation of their humanity at all ... how radical!

The Luckiest Man in the World

2008-07-26T14:23:00.006-04:00

Heh! Hat tip to Powerline. Twenty years ago I laughed when I heard the joke about Dan Quayle being the luckiest man on earth. Dan's now at number two.

Website of the Hour: LibraryThing

2008-07-20T16:41:00.003-04:00

I've been a (paid) member of LibraryThing.com since 2006 and it has been a lot of fun. The idea is that you list the books in your personal library or the books you've read and, when comparing your collection to similar collections of others, you get good ideas about what to read next. Perhaps you've noticed the array of book covers and titles running down the right-hand margin of this blog

Kindle Watch

2008-07-18T17:31:00.002-04:00

Time magazine is reporting that sales of Kindle editions of books now total 12% of total sales at Amazon for those titles. That is, in the universe made up exclusively of the 140,000 titles with Kindle editions available, 12% of sales of those titles by Amazon are in the e-book format. This is double the percentage quoted by Jeff Bezos a couple of months ago. I bought my Kindle in February and

Fatima

2008-06-09T18:40:00.006-04:00

I recently finished reading a book called The Last Secret of Fatima. The book itself, while uneven in quality, shone in several places. Our Lady appeared to three children at Fatima, Portugal several times in 1917 and events associated with those apparitions and the popular piety they have produced ever since in very many people, believers and others, are astounding. One of the three children,

Web Site of the Hour

2008-06-07T11:24:00.002-04:00

Here is another in my series of "web pages of the hour". Called "flickrvision", it is a "mash-up" in which photos being posted to flickr are shown, as they appear and with a pointer to map that represents the location of the person who is uploading them! It is a lot of fun to watch and I may open an account for myself there, seeing as how it is possible to email photos from my beloved iPhone to

I Write Letters

2008-05-26T15:39:00.002-04:00

Here is a copy of an email I sent to the White House from the www.whitehouse.gov web site. They must receive thousands of emails. I wonder if anybody will ever see mine. If I were the sysadmin for this administration, all incoming email would be immediately piped to /dev/null."Dear Sir or Madam,I have noted with approval the recent willingness of the White House to "fire back" at NBC News and

The Third Man and the Insignificance of Others

2008-05-14T21:36:00.005-04:00

In the latest issue (June/July 2008) of First Things magazine Fr. Richard Neuhaus delivers a sledgehammer blow to the face of the proud and the strong in his monthly "Public Square" article. It is so perfect, so precise, and so devastating, it made me sit upright when I read it. He aptly juxtaposes scenes of people who just know they are right, or least want to make others believe they are

Vatican letter directs bishops to keep parish records from Mormons

2008-05-07T15:56:00.003-04:00

This is creating a churn in the genealogy world:WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons' Genealogical Society of Utah.This is unfortunate but it had to happen some time. This same topic came

Homo Sapiens Nearly Went Extinct 70K years ago

2008-04-24T20:51:00.005-04:00

CNN says: "Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests ... The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday."I've been interested in genealogy since around Thanksgiving 2006 and, in this post-modern age

Two Promising Catholic Podcasts

2006-06-11T21:16:00.000-04:00

I found a couple of podcasts this weekend that are promising. Production values for both are good and both are orthodox and entertaining. The first is the "Pray-as-you-go" podcast produced by a community of British Jesuits. From the Ekklesia website:"A new initiative by the British Jesuits - a religious order of the Catholic church - to offer commuters daily prayer sessions in MP3 format, as

Teddy Kennedy, Glass Houses, and Throwing Stones

2006-06-05T16:27:00.000-04:00

Is Ted Kennedy the right person to be criticizing the character of his ideological opponents?"...This so-called Federal Marriage Amendment should really be called the Republican Right Wing 2006 Electoral Strategy Amendment because it is more about rallying an extreme base to vote than about solving a problem. Proponents use fear tactics and claim that marriage is under attack by activist judges .

"Babies aborted for not being perfect"

2006-05-29T13:32:00.000-04:00

See the article..."The ethical storm over abortions has been renewed as it emerged that terminations are being carried out for minor, treatable birth defects. Late terminations have been performed in recent years because the babies had club feet, official figures show. Babies are being aborted with only minor defects. Other babies were destroyed because they had webbed fingers or extra digits.

"Hate hotline puts speech on hold"

2006-05-15T16:07:00.000-04:00

Phew! Take a look at this act of wisdom in Boulder, Colorado. Okay, some believe Tom Hanks and Opie are spewing hatred at Catholics because of their upcoming Da Vinci Code movie. After all, co-producer John Calley has reportedly admitted that the film is anti-Catholic. Based on what could shortly happen Boulder, any Catholic who is sick and tired of putting up with the "last acceptable

I am in Barcelona, Spain!

2006-04-23T05:42:00.000-04:00

I am in Barcelona, Spain to attend the 2006 IEEE INFOCOM Conference. After arriving yesterday morning, flying redeye overnight from New York's JFK airport, I staggered to the hotel and showered. Then I picked up my camera and went on a walkabout to stay awake until evening so that I could sync to the local time, six hours ahead of what I'm used to in Maryland. I had a good time and sat and

The Immigration Rallies

2006-04-10T16:30:00.000-04:00

I want to clarify my motivation for writing Cardinal Mahony about his grandstanding (hat tip to National Review) on the issue of illegal immigration and amnesty. I am annoyed about the propensity of a large percentage of the USCCB to change the subject from sexual assaults on minors by a small percentage of the Catholic clergy, and how it is exacerbated by their hesitation to root out tolerance

No phone calls please, Sunday @ 9:00 pm

2006-03-11T13:43:00.000-05:00

The sixth season of The Sopranos starts. Yessssssss!!!

My Letter to Cardinal Mahoney

2006-03-03T17:01:00.000-05:00

I am annoyed about a NY Times editorial from this morning and the response by the Catholic League this afternoon. My reaction was different from that of the Catholic League. I even wrote an email to the Cardinal and thought others might be interested in reading it too."Cardinal Mahoney,"The NY Times said this morning that you have 'instructed' Catholics to defy a proposed law aimed at reforming

And Another One

2006-02-23T19:12:00.000-05:00

Again, from Witness to Hope, p. 321:"There was another, simpler, even primitive reason for the overwhelming emotion the Pope evoked [on his first trip back to Poland after his election as Pope]. It was nicely articulated by an anonymous Polish miner who, when asked why anyone should be religious in a communist state, replied 'To praise the Mother of God and to spite those bastards.'"And I

Quote of the Day

2006-02-21T17:00:00.000-05:00

I am currently reading Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II by George Weigel. In describing the reaction of the eastern European regimes and their Soviet puppet masters to the election of Pope John Paul II, Weigel relates the following anecdotes and comment on p. 269 of the trade paperback edition:"The Polish communist leadership was also the target of sarcasm from its fraternal

Visit to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

2006-01-06T09:31:00.000-05:00

My wife and I toured the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception down in Washington, DC yesterday --- after living in the area for only eight years. As I assume pretty much everyone will tell you, we found it very, very impressive and I'm now sorry we waited so long. There are two main church areas, the Crypt church on the lower level, finished in the 1920s, and the main

Technical Computing Using Free Software on a Windows Computer

2005-12-22T08:35:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to a web site I was briefly developing a few years ago. It was interesting to do but I quickly saw how much time it was consuming and had to stop. Some of the stuff is out of date now but the site, as well as the sites to which it links, still interest me.

Now There'll Be FIVE Papists on the SCOTUS!!! Omigawd!!!

2005-11-01T16:25:00.000-05:00

It has already started. Here's a cartoon from the good ol' days when Catholics knew their place and Know-Nothings and the Klan were protecting the Republic.

Bush Doesn't Nominate IHOP Cashier for Fed Chief

2005-10-24T16:03:00.000-04:00

In startling news today, President Bush nominated a serious candidate to replace Alan Greenspan as Fed Chief. Observers were amazed because the IHOP cashier could always add numbers in his head pretty fast back in Midland, TX when the future president paid for breakfast.Question: How are Bush's first 2004 debate with Kerry and and his, umm, stealth selection of Harriet Miers alike?Answer:

My Amazon.com Comments on "Mother Angelica"

2005-10-17T09:24:00.000-04:00

I recently wrote some comments on Amazon.com on the new book Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles by Raymond Arroyo. They are as follows."This is an exciting, well written book, something that I was not expecting at all. I began watching and contributing to EWTN during a difficult period of my life and Mother Angelica's network is a blessing to

EWTN Is Now Podcasting!

2005-10-14T14:25:00.000-04:00

Whether you've been wondering what podcasts are, whether you're an occasional sampler of podcasts, or whether you're addicted (like me), EWTN is now podcasting! Check out the EWTN Podcasting page! Wondering how to get started? After starting out with iPodder, I've moved to Apple's iTunes to subscribe to podcasts. The Apple software seems hard to beat at the moment...

Latest Book I'm Willing to Admit I've Read

2005-10-10T13:09:00.000-04:00

I just finished How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. Regular readers of this blog might guess that I'm sympathetic to the aim of the book, and I am, but this was a pretty average read. In spite of the embarassing pains the author takes to establish his bona fides ("four Ivy League degrees, including an A.B. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Columbia"), it's not

The "To Be Read" Pile

2005-10-10T12:41:00.000-04:00

This is a list of some of the most anticipated (by me) books I own and mean to read some day. They will probably stay on the "to be read" pile for some years because each requires a large investment in time and care to read and, with the job and family, I just don't have as much of those as I want. When and if I retire some day, I'm going to seriously and methodically read them. In the

9/11/01 Transcripts and Audio

2005-08-12T16:35:00.000-04:00

I cannot let go of this and I suspect there are many like me: Tears of rage well up even now. The city of New York has released transcripts of the finest people in America at the time of the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001:"A rich vein of city records from Sept. 11, including more than 12,000 pages of oral histories rendered in the voices of 503 firefighters, paramedics,