A friend of the devil is a friend of mine
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The Rev. Continue Reading
Keeping our thoughts on Haiti
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There’s never much that can be said in the first few hours of a natural disaster, other than that the disaster has happened, and that help will be needed. Well, disaster has happened. A magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti, right by the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince. And help will be needed. Continue Reading
Reid and Lott
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As you all most certainly know, an embarrassing quote from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., surfaced over the weekend. Reid apparently stated during the 2008 election that then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., would be an electable African-American candidate because he was lighter-skinned, and because he had the ability not to speak in a “Negro dialect.”
The Quistian right returns
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One of the things I missed covering in the last couple of days was the rant by former State Rep. Allen Quist, R-St. Peter, talking about how radical Democrats are a bigger threat to democracy than terrorism. The Republican, who is challenging Rep. Continue Reading
Finding higher beauty in math
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If you’ve ever studied anything related to fractals, you’ve no doubt come across the Mandelbrot set. Named for its progenitor, mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, the image takes a simple formula, repeats it, studies how quickly or slowly results approach or escape a boundary, and voilà1 — a stunning image is born. And not just at the macro level — zooming in on small pieces of the set reveals striking details. And adding shading to indicate how quickly or slowly numbers escape zero, and you get beautiful images like this: Continue Reading
The jokes just write themselves
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So there was a failed terror attack on Friday, and while that’s kind of scary and all, really, in this case, it’s mostly hilarious:
Per Ed Henry on CNN:
How things should be done
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As we all know at this time, the junior senator from Minnesota refused to agree to granting Sen. Continue Reading
Left angry by Garrison Keillor’s latest screed
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I used to live a block west of Garrison Keillor when I lived in St. Paul. Occasionally when out jogging, I’d cross paths with the humorist, out pushing his daughter in a stroller, and I’d nod politely, as talking in such a situation would be un-Minnesotan. I knew quite a bit of Keillor’s oeuvre, of course; growing up in Minnesota is was impossible not to know a bit about the fictional hamlet of Lake Wobegon; indeed, I did a sixth-grade map project about a search for Lake Wobegon, which, as all Minnesotans know, is located under the fold they made in the map to hide the fact that the state was just a bit too big. Continue Reading
Simmer down now
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So on Tuesday night, news broke that the Senate may be close to ditching the public option, and predictably, many of my fellow progressives went berserk, declaring that the end was near and 2012 was really prophetic and the only option is to not vote in 2010, which will really show Democrats by giving Republicans majorities in both houses, which will help along progressive goals by…uh…something. Continue Reading