In Which I Godwinize the iPad — alternatively titled, “Fun with subtitles.”

Via Twitter’s #JimMacMillan, I learn that there is a very uncomfortable bunker somewhere beneath Berlin in which the presumed shortcomings of the iPad are being discussed. Enjoy:

Call Your Senators…

Per this post here and that post there. Here’s a link to the phone number for every Democratic Sen.  You know what to do. Image:  John Leach, “Fabianus offers peace or war to the Carthaginian Senate,” from A Comic History of Rome, c. 1850.

Words Matter: High Tech, “Feminine Products” division

Most of the way through the Greatest Apple Announcement Ever and the#ipad twitter series is deeply fixated on the awesomeness of the fail in giving the new device a name that is such a short leap from a product that has little to do with computing, and a great deal to do, as one of [...]

What Tim Says: Contact Your Senators Now About HCR.

Tim F. over at Balloon Juice has been fighting the good fight for a while now, rallying that community to whip their representatives, and now their senators, for what appears the only clear path to health care/health insurance reform. That’s the PTBFWR solution:  Pass The Damn Bill/Fix With Reconciliation approach. The key is to persuade [...]

In Honour of Burns Day: more than orthography edition

For all my friends (and I have some!) (really — ed?) who plan to celebrate tonight by eating the inner organs of beasts,* (or rather, one organ from one species) irrigated with the distilled essence of barley, this: And if you really want to go to the grotesquerie end of the scale, consider this early [...]

Health Care Reform and 9/11, or yet another way to demonstrate that the GOP and its allies are moral imbeciles.

I remember September 11, 2001, very well indeed.  That morning, I’d walked across 12th St. at Sixth Ave. to grab a quick breakfast at Joe Jr.’s.  I even remember what I had:  a toasted bialy with raspberry jam and a cup of coffee.  I was chatting with a couple of other guys at the counter [...]

My Email to President Obama on Health Care

Tim over at Balloon Juice is trying to lead in the fight over health care. He’s absolutely right:  we have to contact our representatives and senators as often as we can to reinforce their sense that we have their back if they take action on health care, and we will drop them like a rock [...]

Why Friends Don’t Let Friends Derive Drunk

xkcd to the rescue of a very bad week: And yes, it was all an excuse for the vile wordplay in the headline, and yes, it doesn’t quite fit the comic, but its my blog. So there.

Poseur Alert (not to mention wallet grabbing): Ken Burns, Baseball and the 2004 magical Red Sox run

Here’s the sage of New Hampshire, opining on the spiritual genius of America’s pastime: Baseball is a precise mirror of who we are, and I can’t recall a time that was more evident, particularly considering the deep emotional, communal, and personal impact, than during the 2004 ALCS when the Red Sox overcame the Yankees,’’ said [...]

Science Online 2010 Brain Bubbles: Duck Genitalia Doggerel

As has been amply twittered, (search #scio10), one of the hit of this years Science Online conference has been Carl Zimmer’s account of the extraordinary sexual equipment of ducks. Not only did it serve as an object lesson (and what an object!–ed.) on the intricacies of science journalism in the age of the web, it [...]