I am sad to report that dagblog has been forced to dismiss a member of our team after years of faithful service.
You may not know TinyMCE by name, but she has served has our Rich Text Editor since 2008 when dagblog was founded. Every word that you have ever typed at dag has been tenderly processed and formatted by the indefatigable Tiny.
True, she sometimes garbled the font and impulsively inserted extra lines between paragraphs. And yes, her spellchecker never worked very well. But she did her job every day without complaint and kept dagblog humming.
By Michael Maiello on Tue, 07/05/2011 - 3:59pm | Social Justice
I don't follow murder trials closely and I can't stand Nancy Grace, a former prosecutor who seems to think that no innocent people have ever been accused of a crime in America ever. When juries acquit in what we outsiders are assured are "slam dunk" cases, I don't get angry about it. It's pointless, after all, and the jury generally knows better than anybody whether or not a prosecutor has surmounted the "reasonable doubt" hurdle.
I'm enjoying the Glorious Fourth from my front porch, with Old Glory flying and a whole fridgeful of red and blue berries just waiting for some patriotic whipped cream to make them a virtuous Yankee dessert. Later today, my Red Sox will be taking on the British Commonwealth's only big-league baseball team, Toronto. I hope they do the Sons of Liberty proud.
In honor of the day, a recipe and a bit of historical trivia. First, the recipe:
Boston Harbor Iced Tea 1. Brew Darjeeling tea and ice it.
By Donal on Sun, 07/03/2011 - 10:53pm | Arts & Entertainment
Back around 1992, I bought a pile of cassettes from a cutout rack somewhere. One was The Stone Roses, by a Manchester band of the same name that produced this breakthrough album before becoming entangled in legal problems. Even though the album was released in 1989, SR sounded to me like a jumble of Dave Clark Five, Kinks and Doors with a bit of the wall of sound thing going on.
A couple of days ago I spent a hot Madrid summer evening sitting in a sidewalk café, chatting and reminiscing around the ruins of a fine meal, with a group of Americans from San Francisco that are making a film about a close friend of mine, someone who died many years ago. They had completed principal photography and this was their last night in Spain.
The NBA lockout started yesterday, and one might ask, who cares about millionaires fighting billionaires? Looking at the details, it appears that even NBA player millionaires are, like 'little people', ripe targets for scams by greedy and rich corporate run organizations. I side with the players for the reasons below. The following is my interpretation of facts presented from ESPN articles linked below..
President enters stage left, beaming loftily at the Chorus.
House Speaker enters right, arms crossed and scowling.
President silently opens his hands as if presenting a gift. Speaker shakes his head angrily.
President furrows his brow, points at his watch, and wags his finger. Speaker shakes his fist in the air and grimaces fiercely.
Chorus members cover open mouths in alarm and look nervously at their watches.
* * *
It makes for good theater, and the audience is enthralled. Will Democrats cave to Republican demands for stiff budgets cuts as a condition for raising the debt ceiling? Will Republicans compromise on taxes? Are they actually crazy enough to drive the United States into bankruptcy?
Given the breathless media coverage of the drama, you can be forgiven for thinking that you're witnessing a genuine conflict with serious economic consequences. In fact, what is you're watching is a charade--a dumb show, as it was called in Shakespeare's time.
Must be an awkward day for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. His case against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn is reportedly collapsing and the most serious charges might be dropped. Prosecutors are likely hoping to save face by getting Kahn to plead guilty on some misdemeanor charge but Strauss-Kahn has proven himself a fighter.
The signers of The Declaration of Independence combined political courage with intellectual honesty. Indeed for them, the first was entirely rooted in the second. As they said, since “prudence…will dictate that Government long established should not be changed for light and transient causes,” “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that” those proposing radical change “should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” This they duly did in what is now the Republic’s founding document.
Ezra Klein has an interesting little blurb on how the Republicans rejected a plan by the Obama administration that reduced the deficit by 2.4 trillion. 2 trillion came from spending cuts and 400 million came from tax increases. Tax increases were 17% of the plan. The plan was rejected by the Republicans.
By Ramona on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 9:00am | Politics, Humor & Satire
Happy Canada Day (formerly Dominion Day), July 1, and Happy Fourth of July (formerly Independence Day), July 4. Both days celebrate independence from Great Britain, the only difference being we dropped the Brits in 1776 and the Provinces to the North went on bitching about them until 1982.
A couple of days ago I spent a hot Madrid summer evening sitting in a sidewalk café, chatting and reminiscing around the ruins of a fine meal, with a group of Americans from San Francisco that are making a film about a close friend of mine, someone who died many years ago. They had completed principal photography and this was their last night in Spain.
