Sentential Links (Page 29)

Ninety-six, as in, the last full calendar year in which I was a bachelor: 1996. O how time flies! Anyhow, the linkage for this week ensues…. :: I saw empathy on my little girl’s face as she handed a hungry person soup and crackers leftover from her lunch downtown today. And a few minutes later, while holding my hand and walking through the canyons of the financial district, she told me she loved me. (Completely random blog find.) :: Knowing full well the nature of the Internet, I have always kept this blog below the radar. The door is open,Down the rabbit hole….

One Sentential Links post for each thesis that Martin Luther nailed to the door of…wherever it was that he nailed them to the door. Crap, I used to know this. There was college tuition money well-spent…. [off to Google!] Ah, he nailed them to a church door at Wittenberg, Germany. Not to be confused with Wartburg Castle, where he translated the New Testament into German from the original Klingon (and thus provided a handy name to some people in Iowa centuries later who needed to name a college). Anyway…. :: Will the demands for authenticity expand to a ban onDown the rabbit hole….

Yup, we’re at #94 in Sentential Links, thus arriving at the number currently worn by Bills defensive end Aaron Schobel. Yes, you care. :: Not to wish ill on anybody but this is the kind of headline that would lead to hours of one-liners in a sitcom writing room. :: Instead, I’ll just note that the dude died at his drawing board. That’s hardcore. :: It’s magical, this Surge; no matter what happens, the evidence demonstrates that the Surge is working. It can’t fail! Any behavior taken by anyone in Iraq is a positive by-product of the Surge. :: AsDown the rabbit hole….

Ninety-three! And with that number, we have now produced one Sentential Links post for every one of the naturally-occurring elements, and are now into the ones that are generally produced only in nuclear experiments and such. Or something like that. I’m sure I have a chemistry or physics-minded reader who will correct me here, pronto. Anyhow, the links: :: Without us to care, the universe is nothing but a lot of empty accidents. But if humans care and remember, marvel at the shape of galaxies and the variety of butterflies, then those things do mean something. :: Sometimes I thinkDown the rabbit hole….

Ninety-two! Get ’em while they’re hot! :: I am so very, very tired of finger-waving scolds, moralists, and prudes having a conniption fit over things that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in other parts of the country. I’m tired of the embarassment of the rest of the country thinking that everyone in Utah is like these folks that make so much trouble and end up in the “news of the weird” columns. More importantly, I’m tired of the prudes having such an outsized amount of influence over the culture in these parts. (While on vacation in Utah with my mother yearsDown the rabbit hole….

Here we go now! :: Unions appear to have, at most, modest and variable effects on student outcomes. Even the most hostile reading of the evidence doesn’t come anywhere close to suggesting that unions are the single biggest obstacle in the way of educating our children properly. And it doesn’t come within light years of suggesting that it would be worth doubling spending to get rid of them. :: Recently, as I was enthusing about my obsessive love of all things Battlestar Galatica, someone asked, “Why do you waste your time on that weirdo, geeky, sci-fi crap?” :: I can’tDown the rabbit hole….

Time to link stuff! Hooray! (Although not as many this week, since I was offline for something like two days. Two long days. Two lllooonnnggg days. Longest days ever.) :: Ass. (Who? Click it!) :: Every blogger, no matter how well read, tends to suffer from “Ted Barlow syndrome”; the belief that nothing you say or do or write matters. (Crap, I can’t even get that syndrome named after me.) :: It is official. I’m going to relocate to Buffalo. (Ha ha ha HAAAA! In your face, Charlotte NC!) :: It was probably the most glorious summer of my life.Down the rabbit hole….

Let’s get right to it, shall we? (More political ones than usual.) :: Outside of Berkeley, you’d have to swing several hundred dead cats before you’d be likely to come across an actual socialist. :: Obviously, I’d forgotten the Conservative Rule of Decency which is that calling, explicitly or implicitly, for one’s political rivals to be killed and/or imprisoned is fine, but using naughty language is not. Coulter, by unleashing the other F-Bomb, joined me in forgetting this rule and wound up being punished. :: Terry Nitpicker notes (in a post that deserves to be read and re-read and handedDown the rabbit hole….

With this installment, there is one Sentential Links post for every key on a standard piano. (But I’ve got four more to go for one of those extended bass Bosendorfers.) :: As I think I mentioned here before, I firmly and irrevocably, and with no irony or insincerity of any kind, believe that Kermit the Frog’s rendition of “Bein’ Green” is one of the greatest vocal performances of the 20th Century. :: For years homeschooled children have had to rely for all of their information on Wikipedia, which is full of dangerous ideas that homeschooling was supposed to prevent fromDown the rabbit hole….

I’ll probably be away from the computer most of the day tomorrow (Monday — Presidents’ Day), so here are this week’s Sentential Links, one day early. :: One of the reasons I love researching for Pulp Heroes is that I’m constantly reminded that our predecessors could be so exuberantly imaginative. A crossdressing rocambolesque zeppelin-piloting master criminal from a 1915 silent film–how fun is that? :: I’ve always figured that anyone who thinks that the world today is more dangerous and more frightening than, say, the decade after WWII, is either too young to remember, too incurious to have read anyDown the rabbit hole….