Climbing aboard the economic roller-coaster

The Hen-House Crisis
While economics is usually a strong suit of mine, I want to say right up front that I’m not qualified to summarize the current financial goings-on. I’ve spent only a cursory amount of time investigating what, exactly, all this crap means, and while I’m certain I could understand it quite well with [...]

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About Nothing

There’s been a bit of consternation around the blogosphere about Microsoft’s most recent commercials featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. Detractors have been labeling them the “Ads About Nothing”, for reasons which should be fairly obvious. But if you’ve not seen them yet, give it a look. Go on. I’ll wait.
…
…Yeah, [...]

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Genes and male homosexuality

As someone who finds human sexuality (and the causes behind it) fascinating, I was very interested to read this article on a recent genetic theory of male homosexuality. (Don’t worry, it’s much more readable than my description makes it sound.) The question it tries to answer is this: Assuming a genetic basis for [...]

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What do you want in a news service?

Just today, Slate ran an article about Michael Crichton’s fifteen-year-old prediction of mass-media extinction. The resulting story was interesting, but the reader-response question at the end caught my eye: What do you want in a news service? I was slightly surprised to realize that this question had been percolating for a while [...]

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Picture time!

Brian and I spent some of last weekend out and about in the lovely Juneau weather (it was only mostly cloudy).  He took a bunch of pictures, some of which even had people in them!  Well, “person”, singular:

(Click picture to significantly embiggen.)
As serene and contemplative as I look, here, you’d probably never guess [...]

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Let’s Say I Come Visit Your House

A response to Let’s Say I Break Into Your House.
Recently the issue of illegal immigration seems to be causing a lot of strife among Americans of different opinions. Some Americans are angry that the United States, one of the richest nations in the world, is trying to make it harder for people born in [...]

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A cause for celebration

I come in to work this morning, and there’s a folder sitting on my desk with our company health care logo on it. Given that it’s plan renewal season, I pick it up, and, with the care and attention usually given to a live explosive, gingerly open to the “Highlights of your Health Care Coverage” [...]

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On the latest gaming buzz

Gamer or no, I’ll admit that the Grand Theft Auto series has never held much appeal for me.  I’m not certain exactly why; I like sandbox gameplay, generally speaking, and I don’t really care about the violent content – I’ve known people who played it entirely for the purpose of listening to the hilarious [...]

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I am so damn out of shape.

I have been defeated by the spectre of twenty sit-ups in a row. This from the girl who could do fifty of them without breaking a sweat back in high school.
I’m also now a good twenty pounds over where I’d like to be weight-wise, and a good ten over what I’m really comfortable with.
I think [...]

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Promoting Literacy

(Click picture to embiggen!)

We took this picture for a sort of tongue-in-cheek contest that Pat Rothfuss held to celebrate the paperback release of his first book. The original concept for this was a bit more naughty-librarian-ish, but unfortunately, the only other skirt I had was practically indecent. And since we were taking it [...]

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