This morning, in response to a story on NPR, Ruby asked me what “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” means. Never one to shy away from an opportunity to explain extraordinarily complicated issues to a young child, I dove right in… First I started by explaining that the people in the army and navy don’t have as [...]
How To Explain DADT to a 4-year-old
September 22, 2010
Gotcha Politics
September 20, 2008
This blog post (which made it onto boingboing today) was the last straw for me. It takes Microsoft to task for using a Macintosh to create their latest “I’m a PC” ad campaign. There’s no discussion of the content of the ads. Just a quick mention of a meaningless point of embarrassment. Gotcha! There’s too [...]
On Poppies
November 10, 2007
I spotted a poppy pin lying on the ground today. Serendipitous! Poppies are a Canadian tradition — nobody wears them here — and the pin was probably accidentally dropped by a Canadian shopper taking advantage of the exchange rate. I’m excited to be able to celebrate Remembrance Day properly. In the US it’s Veteran’s Day; [...]
10 out of 10
November 10, 2007
An article in today’s paper discussed your carbon footprint. They talk about some cars, and how each one gets an EPA “greenhouse gas score” out of 10 (higher is better). A GMC Yukon gets a 3 out of 10; a Prius gets 10 out of 10. A perfect score? For a car which only reduces [...]
My Advice for the Seattle Bus
November 6, 2007
I ride the bus to and from work every day. It’s about 45 minutes door-to-door, including about four blocks of walking. Not too bad, although about twice as long as a car would take. I don’t mind taking the bus, though, since it’s cheaper than gas, parking, and payments on a second car. Plus, I [...]
Swarthy Choice
November 2, 2007
There’s an ad on the bus warning everyone to be vigilant of stray packages. These ads are sad and ultimately destructive of the society they’re supposed to protect. I wish we could learn to think more rationally about risk. But anyway, that’s not what prompted this post. The ad has a picture of a suitcase-like [...]
Forget the Nanny State; I need a Nanny Church
August 26, 2006
Katherine Harris is running for Florida Senate. She was recently interviewed by the Florida Baptist Witness: If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin. They can legislate sin. They can say that abortion is alright. [...]
My take on I-933
August 8, 2006
Initiative 933 is on the ballot for Washington State this fall. Here’s the summary: This measure would require compensation when government regulation damages the use or value of private property, would forbid regulations that prohibit existing legal uses of private property, and would provide exceptions or payments. Read the full initiative here: http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/initiatives/text/i933.pdf I am [...]
Peggy Noonan against Science
July 20, 2006
Sometimes I wonder how apparently dumb people get to be in positions of such influence. Take, for example, this column by Peggy Noonan, an editor at the Wall Street Journal: During the past week’s heat wave–it hit 100 degrees in New York City Monday–I got thinking, again, of how sad and frustrating it is that [...]
Defend us from what?
June 7, 2006
I would like to officially state that my marriage to Kate is in no way threatened by the marriage of one person to another person of the same sex. If your marriage is threatened by two men you’ll never meet saying “I do”, then you and your spouse should probably visit a marriage counsellor.