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Marginalia, notes and self-promotion

Charlie Stross, he who writes SF that makes your brain hurt (in a good way) has posted an interesting “conspiracy theory.” To use one of his shorthand descriptions, we can blame William Gladstone for the mess in Iraq today. Since Gladstone died more than 100 years ago, go read Charlie’s blog entry to find […]

Book Review: Serenity (2005)

Generally, I’m not one for reading books after seeing the movie upon which it was based. I’m even less inclined to read the “novelization” of a film, figuring its sole purpose is to put additional cash in the pockets of the studio or those that own the movie. Because of my adoration of the all-too-soon-canceled […]

The end of limbo, Catholic style?

One of the numerous things that bemused me in Catholic grade school was the fate of “pagan babies,” as the nuns tended to call them. The story was that infants who died unbaptized ended up in limbo. That was part of the reason we had to raise money for missions. We needed to help save […]

Marginalia and local dicta (Updated)

A few recent odds and ends now that the Thanksgiving and snow break have ended and I’ve looked at something other than a book:

I’m a big fan of Wikipedia. Now comes Wiktionary and it looks quite intriguing. Now I just need Firefox to add it to the options for its search box so I […]

Book Review: The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)

I’d be the first to admit that I’m about as far from the literati as you can get. That said, while Joan Didion probably helps define that class and her National Book Award winning The Year of Magical Thinking has plenty of literary references, its scope goes far beyond that.

The Year of Magical Thinking […]