mere linkage

answering the hermit crab shell shortage with plastic (cited in November by Vicki Rosenzweig)

We acknowledge that such trans-species caregiving may in fact be a form of control. In recognition of this paradox, the new structures are aesthetically based on the architecture of Giuseppe Terragni, an Italian Fascist active in the 1930s.

clever simple Flash game

Hopkin green frog: behind the scenes

Montana legislature condemns Patriot Act

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chew slowly

Met a man the other day who said his son had rung up a fortune in dental bills during an amphetamine habit; something I’d never heard of before. Now why wasn’t that mentioned in hi-skool “health” propaganda class? It’s scarier than most of what was.

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fontoma

The latest issue of The Freeman shows a complete redesign, with a curious choice of typefaces. The body is Goudy. Main titles and pull-quotes are Times Roman. Running heads and the titles of reviewed books are in Myriad. By-lines and sub-heads are Franklin Gothic (or something similar).

I’ve nothing against Goudy, but I don’t think it’s only my notorious conservatism that makes me prefer the old design, which was entirely(?) in various forms of Minion (serif) and Myriad (sans) — two faces designed to go together.

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our television heritage

My Favorite Martian is available on DVD, but not The Addams Family or The Wild Wild West or Get Smart. Does that seem right to you?

We recently watched the first two episodes of The Protectors (1972), which wanted to be The Avengers — even quoting from the latter’s title narration at one point, contrasting the “professional” with the “talented amateur”. The plots were tolerably interesting, but the sparkle of the model was missing; as if Gerry Anderson took some leftover Avengers scripts and said, “Okay, now let’s cut out all the humour.”

Today I watched the first two episodes of The Saint (1962), and was surprised at how trite they are: a failed theatre producer plans to kill his third wife for the insurance; a gangster kidnaps an American governor’s daughter to get his brother out of the electric chair, and guess what, the Saint fails to spot the obvious corrupt policeman. Unlike the Saint of the books, this one is not in the habit of working alone; there’s nothing to distinguish him from any number of other teevee detectives, except that early in each episode someone says “hey, that’s the famous Simon Templar!” and a halo briefly appears over his head.

The Saint was, I gather, a very popular series. I shudder to imagine its competition. It would have been better as a half-hour show — and even then it might drag in comparison to its rough contemporary Danger Man.

Posted in cinema | 2 Comments

let many Chinas bloom

As I understand it, both Beijing and Taipei maintain the fiction (or perhaps some in both capitals even believe it) that China is a single state, with one or more province(s) temporarily out of communion with the capitol. A large faction in Taipei would prefer to drop the fiction and “declare independence”, a notion that makes Beijing see red.

What if the Taipei regime were instead to dissolve itself, as the USSR did, letting sovereignty revert to the provinces? Beijing could hardly take that as the same kind of insult.

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would you believe more links?

Tim Worstall: Bad, Bad Minimum Wage. Guess what: a price floor reduces demand! In real life, even!

Sean Corrigan: We Shoulda Seen it Coming! Since the effects of loose money are well known to economists, why can’t business adjust for them?

Check Point Nullification Project; Road Block Registry

cultured bone wedding rings; reported in New Scientist

yellow pages of patron saints

Patrick J. Buchanan: The Anti-Conservatives

electrodes against depression — me next!

The Smaller Picture: you help design a bitmap font

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rule of law, you may have heard of it?

What I’ve read about the case of José Padilla tends to come filtered by dangerous subversives like Hornberger; so I’m wondering who, other than employees of the Executive Branch, takes the opposite view. Anyone?

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