- Glenn Beck vs. Science Fiction [via]
- Gosh, if watching The Office means that I’m smug and think I’m better than other people, what does it mean that I think the show isn’t quite as good this season? Is that a double-reverse smugness?
- Publishing good: Apex Magazine’s Special Arab/Muslim Issue. The impetus for the issue can be found here.
- Publishing bad: Cooks Source claims Internet is all public domain, acts like big jerk.
- And finally, I give you: the birth of Kitty Pryde.
religion
Monday various
- Two from Roger Ebert: on racial intolerance and on why he tweets.
- On the set of David Lynch’s Dune with Sean Young. Weirdly fascinating. I wonder if it’s at all worth revisiting that movie. I keep thinking I’ll re-read the book, but I think I’m worried it will just encourage me to read them all. [via]
- Charlie Stross on the iPad [via]:
The iPad doesn’t feel like a computer. It feels like a magic book — like the ancestor of the Young Lady’s Primer in Neil Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. It’s a book with hypertext everywhere, moving pictures and music and an infinity of content visible through its single morphing page. The sum is much weirder than the aggregate of its parts. Criticizing the iPad for not doing Netbook-or laptop-like things is like criticising an early Benz automobile for not having reins and a bale of hay for the horses: it’s a category error.
- The Sea of Galilee is out of fish. [via]
- And finally,inside the Vatican’s private library. [via]
Tuesday various
- Apparently Texas history has a liberal bias and needs to be fixed. This would be funny if these people weren’t responsible for teaching America’s children. As Mary Helen Berlanga (D-Corpus Christi) reportedly said, “Until we are ready to tell the truth about history, we don’t have a good history or social studies textbook.” [via]
- I’m not so sure about this Doctor Who alignment chart — is David Tennant’s Doctor really Chaotic Evil? — but it is interesting. [via]
- Peter Sagal on “How Many Writers Did it Take to Make The Fugitive?” Sometimes, too many cooks doesn’t spoil the broth.
- According to the Vatican’s Chief Exorcist, “the Devil is lurking at the heart of the Catholic Church.” [via]
- And finally, the street performers I see in the NY subway are never this interesting. (Though I did once see Chewbacca at Grand Central!)
Christmas various
- Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
- xkcd on the physics of Christmas. (For the record, I’m pretty sure Heisenberg celebrated the holiday.)
- What’s on the White House Christmas tree? (As if Glenn Beck didn’t have enough to ineptly rant and spume about over the holidays. [via]
- 15 Toys Not to Buy Your Kids This Christmas [via]
- I don’t know about you, but with the first part of The End of Time airing in the UK this weekend, it looks like I will be spending Christmas with a Dalek.
- I’m sure you’ve heard that Bob Dylan has a new Christmas album out. You may even have heard how awful it is. (And believe me, it is awful.) But now you can see for yourself. This may be the most wonderfully, horrible strange cover of “Must Be Santa” ever.
- And finally, Patton Oswalt on what may be my least favorite Christmas song ever.
Happy holidays!
Thursday various
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel beat Avatar in this Wednesday’s box office. That can’t be good. [via]
- George over at Bookninja thinks this is some kind of horrible abomination, but I think this Soft Morphing Blob ‘Bot is actually sort of cool.
- I find it difficult to believe that a version of Lord of the Rings from the orcs’ perspective hasn’t already been written.
- ZombieHarmony — “One of the Best Free Dating Sites for Zombies.” (One of?) [via]
- And finally, Jacob Bronowski and The Ascent of Man [via]: