I have some sad news to report. Months ago, this diary series broke the story of a horribly injust imprisonment.

Today, it pains me to report that the prisoner has died...

Your regular weekly forum for asking questions about how this place, and get them answered. Questions from all comers are welcome, and we'll all do our best to get them answered. Hopefully, they'll even be answered correctly.

I was remiss last week in not thanking georgia10 for filling in for me the week before. My apologies for not doing so earlier.

-dms

And the truly sad thing is, those are his words, as shared in an interview with the New York Times:

Last fall, my parents' dog died suddenly. After a while, they decided to fill the hole in the family.

Meet Robbie:

So, after a hiatus for hardware upgrades (servers now powered by two hamster wheels!), dkosopedia and the FAQ are back.

Also back is this, your regular weekly forum for asking FAQ-y questions, and getting them answered.

Now this is just funny.

Everyone remembers Conservapedia, right? The "Conservative answer to liberal bias on Wikipedia", or something like that. A strong proof of the theorem that it is impossible to distinguish between genuine wingnuts and parodies of same.

Well, the folks at Conservapedia have really stepped in it this time. A few weeks ago, a scientific paper was published showing strong evidence of evolution in bacteria. That being against the declared Conservative worldview, Conservapedia wrote to the author of the paper and demanded all the raw data so that they could show that the experiment was invalid.

He responded...

No, not photographs of rubber balls or pogo sticks. I'm talking about bouncing light.

Your regularly scheduled weekday evening forum for asking questions about how this place works.

Update [2008-6-25 20:41:36 by dmsilev]: Forgot to mention: I'm traveling next week, so we'll miss an edition of this. Unless someone wants to sub, of course...

No, not the umpteen hundred million dollar boondoggle in Alaska. I saw this oddity under construction along the Chicago lakefront a few weeks ago:

Your regularly scheduled weekday evening forum for asking questions about how this place works, and get them answered. No question too stupid to be asked. Granted, if the question is really really stupid, the answer might not be particularly helpful (or even mockery, if the stupidity is deemed to be ...intentional), but feel free to ask.

Sad to say, as I was typing the above, my treasonous fingers decided that 'weekend' was correct. Ah, if only that were so...

-dms

Let me throw the following observation into the general discussion: After someone becomes the nominee, they very rarely choose one of their primary opponents as a running mate.

Don't believe me? Look at the historical record.

Today, a couple of variations on a theme: warning signs.

Last weekend, drchelo was visiting Chicago, and sheddhead and I met with her to go on a classic Chicago trip: a cruise down the river.

The idea behind cruises of this sort is to admire Chicago's rich and varied architecture. As it turned out, though, the best picture I took on the trip had nothing to do with manmade structures

A weekly forum to ask questions about how this place works, and get them answered

Due to start at 8:30 EST (a few minutes from now)

Proposed drinking game:
Sip for every "My friends"
Drink for every praise of Clinton
Drink for every attempt to pretend Bush doesn't exist
Chug if he calls his wife a four letter word live on national television

A couple weeks ago, I met Kossacks sheddhead and TheDerider and we toured Graceland Cemetery on Chicago's North Side. Graceland is the final resting place of many of the wealthiest of late-19th-century Chicago's citizens, and featured an arms race of sorts in terms of fancy monuments.

One, in particular, stood out to me

Another in a regular weekly series to ask questions about how this place works

As we all know, Clinton-fanatic Lanny Davis made a fool of himself in proposing an absurd "solution" to Michigan. poblano provided the definitive and decisive smackdown.

Today, I submit that Mr. Davis doesn't deserve our scorn. He deserves our pity. There's no point scorning a man so obviously divorced from conventional reality.