Rome’s Pantheon, the only great structure of antiquity to survive intact, also is the Basilica of St. Maria ad Martires, in whose walls are interred the Savoy unifier of Italy Victorio Emanuele II and his son Umberto I. It is noon on Sunday, and perhaps a thousand tourists are gathered at . . . . Continue Reading »
T This evening I will be a guest on Fr. Ron Lengwin’s Sunday night radio program, Amplify . It is broadcast from KDKA in Pittsburgh (1020 on the AM dial). You can listen to the show from 9-11 pm EDT online here . I will be on the program to talk about my new book, Return to Rome: Confessions . . . . Continue Reading »
Secondhand Smokette (aka Debra J. Saunders) has a good column out today that makes some strong points about Obama’s pitch for health care reform. Essentially, she writes, he’s trying to sell the voters on the ridiculous notion that more people will get better care without . . . . Continue Reading »
As Terry Pratchett once remarked (thinking of the unwashed Desert Fathers), cleanliness is not often next to godliness, except in an extremely abridged dictionary.Comes, however, the Fredrikson Stallard Brush #1 to make it true:Because Christians get dirty floors, too.Rating: 0.05 out of . . . . Continue Reading »
An interesting column in the New Scientist begins: At a recent dinner at the University of Oxford, a senior researcher in atmospheric physics was telling me about his coming holiday in Thailand. I asked him whether he was concerned that his trip would make a contribution to climate change—we . . . . Continue Reading »
Thanks to Alan Jacobs , I have read the latest excerpt from The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs . “I will restore your sense of childlike wonder,” he vows. “There is nothing you can do to stop me.” Hold that thought. The excerpt in question reads thus: Did you know that now, . . . . Continue Reading »
I know it’s off topic, but browsing on the Sports Illustrated website, I came across these two photos of pitchers in motion: Dwight Gooden in 1985, and Randy Johnson in 1996. The human arm isn’t supposed to do that, is it? Not the thousands of times a professional pitcher throws toward . . . . Continue Reading »
Citizen testimony at the Santa Cruz City Council: This is the way the world ends . . . whimper. . . . . Continue Reading »
The ship is taking on water and beginning to list a’starboard. The CBO has reported that a crucial reform that was going to help make it all affordable, won’t save much money at all. From the story:For the second time this month, congressional budget analysts have dealt a blow to . . . . Continue Reading »
I am worried that we have just begun to hear about the depth of corruption that the case of the Brooklyn human kidney broker will expose. Apparently, poor Israelis were paid $10,000 apiece for a kidney, that were then sold for $160,000. But here’s the really scary part: They came here for the . . . . Continue Reading »
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