Sometime in the late seventies Bob Dylan became a born again Christian, much to the chagrin of many of his fans, who had considered him a standard-bearer for various social and protest movements. His 1979 album Slow Train Coming was much maligned at the time for what were considered to be its harsh and unforgiving Old Testament-type themes, but is now recognized as one of his greatest works. From that album, accompanied by the lovely solo guitar work of Mark Knopfler, here’s I Believe In You.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
CTV covers CTV’s coverage
A banal observation made by a “political observer” who appeared on CTV earlier this afternoon has become one of CTV News’s Top News Stories:
A majority government may be a dream come true for Stephen Harper but there are some obvious pitfalls awaiting the Prime Minister when Parliament opens in Ottawa on Monday, according to one political observer…
The political observer, a political scientist from the University of Montreal, also dropped this earth-shattering gem:
I don’t think (Harper) will get everything he wants but he will get a lot of it.
Whoa, stop the presses. And unplug the cord. And turn out the lights. And….
Hell Bent For Success Part II
Best shot of the beginning of the crash @ .53. Great still shot @ 3:10 & best shot of crash near the stands @ 3:27
Green Energy Productions Inc.
Another one for the “oh, come on, it’s not real money, it’s the taxpayers’s money” files:
A wind farm has been paid £1.2 million not to produce electricity for eight-and-a-half hours. The amount is ten times greater than the wind farm’s owners would have received had they actually generated any electricity…
Makes perfect sense in a global economic downturn.
h/t
Reader Tips
In 1959 American songwriter Paul Clayton wrote a tune called “Who’s Gonna Buy You Ribbons When I’m Gone” (cover version here) that took its melody directly from an old public domain folk song called “Who’s Gonna Buy You Chickens When I’m Gone.” In 1962 Bob Dylan re-borrowed Clayton’s borrowed melody, as well as several key lines from the lyric (their respective publishing companies would later settle out of court) to write his subsequently oft-covered classic Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright. The following year Johnny Cash borrowed Dylan’s borrowed melody – and the same lyrical theme, and the same chord progression – to write a song, uniquely his own, called Understand Your Man.
Borrow some interesting online tidbits and link to them in the comments.
Hell Bent For Success
One fine May morning not long ago my oldest son, 17 at the time, phoned to tell me that he had just spent a couple hours at the state police barracks. Apparently he had been driving “a little fast.” What, I asked, was “a little fast”? Turns out this product of my genes and loving care, the boy-man I had swaddled, coddled, cooed at, and then pushed and pulled to the brink of manhood, had been flying down the highway at 113 miles an hour.
Moody. Impulsive. Maddening. Why do teenagers act the way they do? Viewed through the eyes of evolution, their most exasperating traits may be the key to success as adults.
Greenjobs
Ed Morrissey costs Obama’s loan guarantee program for green technology companies:
With $17.2 billion spent on these programs, the cost per actual job created comes to $4.853 million. That kind of capital could launch entire new businesses, let alone multiple jobs. Any company that ate through $4.853 million to create a job would shortly become a former company …
Well, yeah, unless it was using someone else’s line of credit.
The World Is Being Run By Crazy People
People have alleged that Rick Perry and others like him are anti-science. That’s horrible. Science is extremely important. It’s given us microwaves, dinosaurs and the “Mr. Wizard Show.” And medicines. Except for the homeopathic ones.
It’s critical that we all accept science’s conclusions. For instance, if we don’t agree on the age of the Earth, how will we know what to do when the Earth tries to buy liquor? And without knowledge of evolution, when a species goes extinct, how do we know who to notify as its next of kin?
But despite the obvious importance of science, one group of people does everything in pure defiance of scientific methods: politicians.
Attack Watch Not Exactly Turning Out as Expected
When El Messiah and his team decided to launch AttackWatch.com, they were expecting it to be a unifying force in support of their 2012 election campaign. It hasn’t exactly turned out that way.
For comparison purposes, just imagine what would have happened if Stephen Harper and the Conservatives had launched AttackWatch.ca.
TSA-like Proctology Exams Coming to a Sporting Event Near You?
The nonsense going on at the airports in America will continue to grow elsewhere unless the sheeple stand up and say ‘No More!”.
Skylab is falling! Skylab is falling!
Back to basics
Modern science finally starts to catch up with Neolithic-era shepherds who knew that genetic variants are retained and passed on:
A landmark article went online a few days ago in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. The study was prepared by a team of 32 researchers headed by the University of Edinburgh’s Gail Davies…..the bottom line of the article is reasonably simple. Using nothing but genetic information, the team of researchers was able to establish that the narrow heritability of crystallized intelligence (the kind that can be more easily affected by education) is at least 40 percent. The narrow heritability of fluid intelligence (the kind that involves pure problem-solving ability, independently of acquired knowledge) is at least 51 percent. Note the at least. The study’s authors explicitly state that these estimates are lower bounds.
Reader Tips
You probably think that the deer is alive, and the coyote is alive, and the pheasant is alive. Nope! They’re not!.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
Room for debate
Sun TV’s Michael Coren interviews controversial EDL leader Tommy Robinson.
M Squad
M Squad was an American television drama series about a special unit of the Chicago Police that assisted other units in battling organized crime, corruption, and violent crimes city-wide. It ran from 1957 to 1960. Lee Marvin played the role of Detective Lieutenant Frank Ballinger, a member of M Squad, and Paul Newlan co-starred as his boss, Captain Grey. I have added a new M Squad page to The Sagacious Iconoclast containing the episodes of M Squad that I have been able to find on the Internet. |
News From Salt Lake
I don’t generally bore you all with our exploits as Venus and I travel the dog show trail this summer, but today she scored a big one, defeating the #1 and #2 #5 terriers in the US to win the Terrier Club of Salt Lake Specialty show. Thanks all of you for your patience and thanks to the guest bloggers who have so generously picked up the slack around here while we play.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
*Corrected
Take Me, Obama
The third stage is bargaining. (h/t K Shaidle)
The World Is Being Run By Crazy People
They refused to provide a photograph of the inmate because of privacy concerns. Nor would they identify his home community.
h/t Marc
Clearing the streets
News from France:
Beginning this evening at midnight (12 am September 16 – EBD) holding Muslim prayers in the streets of Paris will be prohibited. The announcement was made by France’s Interior Minister, Claude Gueant, in an interview published today by the daily Le Figaro, which noted that ‘use of force’ against those not complying with the regulation had not been ruled out.
Those who would cry “racism!” or call for greater accommodation surely know in their heart of hearts that if large groups of Christians had been blocking streets and sidewalks with mass prayers the practice would have been stopped years ago.
(h/t BCF)
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
h/t Ken Kulak