How to use this Page

These thieves are apparently not even bothering to be sneaky (or careful)...just ripping out the textblocks and leaving the debris in dark corners of the library. Annoyed by title, as they are not really vandals, they are thieves. I wager you can (or could have) found the stolen plates on ebay. I wonder how many loose plates sold on ebay are *not* stolen...very few these days, I wager.

There is a fun little interview with William Smith, owner of Hang Fire Books over atBoingBoing. William specializes in "vintage paperbacks and lurid pulp fiction from the 1940s-60s" while also carrying general stock. His blog is great as he posts wonderfully lurid pulp covers with pleasing regularity. [Also, you should not miss his current post on the annotated sleaze that arrived recently. Thesis research?!?].

So I was ranting about Microsoft's Songsmith a bit ago and it turns out that I might have been a bit hasty. It turns out that it can make tragic statistical data seem perky and nice...

Oh, but then there is this, arguably the best/worst thing I have seen spawned by the demon-code that is Songsmith:



Thanks...sort of...to BoingBoing for this... Read the rest of this post

A Reading, PA man has been indicted on Federal charges of forgery/fraud charges. According to the charges, he has made over $300,000 over the last several years foisting "signed" books to buyers on Ebay. The only upside here is that he apparently would buy a genuine inscribed copy and then have a company MAKE A RUBBER STAMP of the signature and use that to "inscribe" copies that he would then foist on buyers on ebay...the silver lining being that his bogus crap books should be easier to spot than "better" forgeries.

Bowdlerizing has a long, rich literary history. Named for a 16/17th century physician who published a heavily edited edition of  William Shakespeare "safe" for women and children, it is a practice that has had a small but passionate following ever since...generally within communities that wallow in moralizing, self-righteous indignation and a healthy sense of holier-than-thouness. Admittedly, I may be slightly biased, as I find gutting of literature to be on about the same plane as any other "abuse of innocents" activity...

Shortly after reading Morford's tight description of "stunt writing" ["smart-but-sheltered writer goes on peculiar adventure, often outside his/her comfort zone, then writes about it"] I happened upon a very funny (to read) article on RADAR. The article basically compares Christopher Hitchens' rather horrific article on Waterboarding with his rather horrific article on getting his crotch waxed. I wish I was making this up. From the article:

• "Arms already lost to me, I wasn't able to flail as I was pushed onto a sloping board and positioned with my head lower than my heart. (That's the main point: the angle can be slight or steep.) Then my legs were lashed together so that the board and I were one single and trussed unit."�Hitchens on being waterboarded

• "You have to spread your knees as far apart as they will go, while keeping your feet together. In this "wide stance" position, which is disconcertingly like waiting to have your Pampers changed, you are painted with hot wax, to which strips are successively attached and then torn away."�Hitchens on getting a Brazilian

• "Brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions."�On being waterboarded

• "The combined effect was like being tortured for information that you do not possess, with intervals for a (incidentally very costly) sandpaper handjob."�On getting a Brazilian

• "The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face."�On being waterboarded

• "The thing is that, in order to rip, you have to grip. A point of leverage is required: a place that can be firmly gripped and pulled while the skin is tautened."On getting a Brazilian

• "The team who agreed to give me a hard time in the woods of North Carolina belong to a highly honorable group. This group regards itself as out on the front line in defense of a society that is too spoiled and too ungrateful to appreciate those solid, underpaid volunteers who guard us while we sleep."On being waterboarded

• "The businesslike Senhora Padilha daubed away, took a purchase on the only available handhold, and then wrenched and wrenched again."�On getting a Brazilian

• "I am somewhat proud of my ability to 'keep my head,' as the saying goes, and to maintain presence of mind under trying circumstances. I was completely convinced that, when the water pressure had become intolerable, I had firmly uttered the pre-determined code word that would cause it to cease. But my interrogator told me that, rather to his surprise, I had not spoken a word."�On being waterboarded

• "I swear that several times she soothingly said that I was being a brave little boy ... Meanwhile, everything in the general area was fighting to retract itself inside my body."�On getting a Brazilian

• "If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."�On being waterboarded

• "I had no idea it would be so excruciating."�On getting a Brazilian

As we all know, the spin docs are very dizzy at moment...no one has more fun that catching what comes out of both sides of their mouths more the J. Stewart:

Per the NYTimes:

Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

In 1996, Ms. Palin suggested to the local paper, The Frontiersman, that the conversations about banning books were “rhetorical.”

Apparently, everything is Louisiana is going so well that the Senate and House can waste time, money and...you know...their children's intellectual future on yet another "let's teach creationism as if it were a scientific theory" bill. The republican governor (interestingly, a Hindu turned Catholic), is expected to sign the bill into law. The ACLU and an untold number of other rational organizations will then attempt to save LA from its own stupidity.

I know I have ranted about ID before (see, e.g., here, here or here) and will do my best to avoid doing so again. But. Errr. Ahhh. SERIOUSLY! What the hell is going through these people's collective heads? This is a state whose students score 44th and 46th nationally in Reading and Math, 50th in Advance Placement exams, and is second highest in the nation for the number of children living below the poverty line. Yet rather than spend time/money/effort trying to dig its schools...and students...out of the mire, they spend their time trying to further muddying their already murky educational waters. Twits.

England, rather recently, issued new guidelines to teachers on creationism and ID. They included a wonderful passage on what makes and does not make a "scientific theory":

The use of the word 'theory' can mislead those not familiar with science as a subject discipline because it is different from the everyday meaning of being little more than a 'hunch'. In science the meaning is much less tentative and indicates that there is a substantial amount of supporting evidence, underpinned by principles and explanations accepted by the international scientific community...Creationism and intelligent design are sometimes claimed to be scientific theories. This is not the case as they have no underpinning scientific principles, or explanations, and are not accepted by the science community as a whole.