Jay Manifold

Gee, Who’d’a Thunk?

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Olympic torch relay begins North Korea leg free of protest

Gosh, it’s like they have some secret recipe for domestic tranquillity or something …

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FBIS (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008)

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Not a Chicago Boy exactly, but a towering presence in my inner life for many years. The only thing remotely resembling a writing voice I’ve ever had is a pale imitation of him. Requiescat In Pace.

Updates:

  • added “FRSBIS” (thanks, Jim)
  • from Wired, Video: Arthur C. Clarke’s Last Message to Earth
  • from SomethingAwful forum goon “SirRobin”:

    • Tonight, when the sun has gone down, go outside to a place where you can see the stars. Look up. Watch for a point of light that moves fast enough that its motion is obvious … then take the phone out of your pocket and call someone on the other side of the planet.

  • heh

Gosh, Is There Anything Bush Can’t Do?

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Now he’s responsible for ignorant teenagers:

… President Bush’s education law, No Child Left Behind, has impoverished public school curriculums by holding schools accountable for student scores on annual tests in reading and mathematics, but in no other subjects.

Really, what are these people going to do when Utopia fails to arrive next January 20th? What happens when you think all the world’s problems (and solutions) come from the White House?

KHANNNNN! (A Valentine’s Day Post)

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We are drawn, ineluctably, to something that looks very, very much like required viewing for ChicagoBoyz … “greatness comes to those who take it.”
Previous members of series:

KHANNNNN! (another member of a continuing series)

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The ice storm that clipped both KC and Chicago today, coming as it does after several days of nasty weather, has a lot of us holed up inside and thinking wintry thoughts. We might wonder how the natives of one of the climatically harshest places on Earth deal with it. Or, perhaps, deel with it. So, after considering for a moment whether any other blog can provide puns in Mongolian, graze (Midwesterners [and Mongolians] don’t surf) on over to NYCMongol.com for all your clothing and shelter needs for when you “steppe out.” For those Chicagoan, er, Siberian winters, there’s the cotton quilted deel for a mere C-note-and-a-half, and don’t forget to pick up a pair of (somewhat more steeply priced) boots. Shelter? Get yer yurt right here. You’ll fit right in when our horde (another Mongolian-derived word) of genetically-engineered Temujin-class warriors conquers the world.

Or just pick up a few books. Whatever.

Previous members of series: