NPR : Notes on the Real Gerald Ford Just now on MSNBC's coverage of President Ford's funeral, an old Washington pol was trotting out the "Nixon and Ford had a deeper friendship than previously thought" meme. According to DeFranco on NPR this morning, it's utter bunk. Nixon used to say to anyone in hearing that Ford was stupid, while Ford was much, much smarter than anyone gave him credit for. Apparenlty, he's the only President who was able to conduct his own budget briefing, a complicated affair usually left to experts. Bet Bush leaves it to people with higher math skills.…
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Boing Boing: Grand Canyon bookstore still selling Creationist myth Unbelievable. BoingBoing reported years ago that the official bookstore at the Grand Canyon was selling a book that claimed that it was the result of Noah's flood and was therefore explicable in a fundamentalist, Bible-based world-view. I once had the distinct displeasure of arguing with someone who actually believed this kind of thing; the sciences of geology and stratigraphy were dismissed as some sort of side-effect of the first day of Creation. All the embedded fossils were held to be tricks of the Devil, meant to distract us from the Biblical…
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Caveat Lector » Trafalgar and Westminster Despite my mother’s enthusiastic recommendation, I found Westminster Abbey a difficult place to visit, and should I return to London, I don’t believe I will return there. The church itself is well-built and handsome, but its graceful old bones are impossible to see for all the plaques and busts and sculptures and coats-of-arms and regimental flags and inscriptions and decorated tombs and every other imaginable memorial created by the hand of man tumbling all over each other and fighting for attention. Many of them would be quite beautiful, were there enough negative space around…
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In the sky A bird? A plane? A … UFO? | Chicago Tribune It sounds like a tired joke–but a group of airline employees insist they are in earnest, and they are upset that neither their bosses nor the government will take them seriously. A flying saucerlike object hovered low over OHare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon. Was it an alien spaceship? A weather balloon lost in the airspace over the worlds second-busiest…
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Great Performances . From Vienna: The New Years Celebration 2005 | PBS I've been listening to KUNC's "eclectic music" programming via streaming Internet just now, and they announced that they'll be broadcasting the annual New Year's concert from Vienna later this afternoon. I started crying. Last night at midnight, I was just dozing off when firecrackers and loud "reports" (guns or M-80s or whatever) started going off. It occured to me that 2007 was a year without Mom in it, and started crying. Yesterday, at the farewell liturgy for Holy Innocents (AKA Holy Moly), a former vicar came up to…
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The Braid Blog – Two Communities Coming Together To Make… » One Bread, One Body December 31 When we go to our regular schedule on January 14, the 9 a.m. liturgy will be close to what the Holy Innocents’ liturgy has been, and the 11 a.m. liturgy will be similar to what St. Nicholas has done. In the months ahead, I will tweak both liturgies some, to make them even stronger vehicles for worship and especially to make them even more inviting to visitors. The 9 a.m. tweaking will be minor – singing the psalm and one or two more…
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Ford attacks Bush over Iraq invasion in message from beyond the grave | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited President George Bush, accustomed to criticism from Republicans of his fathers generation, suffered a rebuke from beyond the grave from the late president Gerald Ford yesterday in published comments calling the war on Iraq a mistake. In an interview with the Washington Posts Bob Woodward, granted on condition that it be published only after Mr Fords death, the late president said he strongly disagreed with Mr Bushs stated justification for the war – that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. He also…
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"Sky Torah" takes to the air with Israeli carrier – Yahoo News NEW YORK Reuters – Israels No. 2 carrier, Israir Airlines, is permanently installing a handwritten Torah scroll on board one of its aircraft, marking the first "Sky Torah" in aviation history, the airline said on Wednesday. The scroll, which was created for the airline in Aventura, Florida, will begin its journey to Israel on Thursday with a ceremony at New Yorks John F. Kennedy International Airport. At the ceremony, the Torah will be carried under a traditional chuppah, or canopy. Israir expects the Sky Torah, as the carrier…
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Women's Birkenstock-like Red Cat and Blue Dog Shoes OH! I know someone who would love the dog version:
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The Gay Bishops Links Remember the smear campaign conducted against Gene Robinson when he was elected Bishop of New Hampshire: Fred Barnes started it. Remember the huge amount of publicity generated by the news that two large and conservative parishes were leaving the Episcopal Church? Fred Barnes is a member of one of them, and as a FOX pundit-on-call he commented on it on air. Remember the IRD? Fred Barnes is on the board. Coincidence? I think not. Via Jake