The Hall of Fire

What I find funniest is 500 'art scholars' soberly pronouncing DuChamp's 'Fountain' to be the mosts significant work of the 20th-century- blissfully clueless, apparently, that DuChamp was snarkily sending up 'sober art scholars!' I've long thought that if anyone were to write a new book on this stu...

Been lurking for a couple of months. I had hoped there would be more posts. I love this article. I would love to hear your thoughts on Arab poetry. Thanks, wilma. Right now, my thoughts on Arab poetry are tentative. My exposure is limited, though I have discussed some with my brother and his wife, ...

I think the phrasing was very clear. Obama said no form of tax increase. And two weeks into office he said into law a form of tax increase, that effects many people who make much less than 250k. This is why politicians shouldn't make such statements. Seriously, in the condition we are in, we need t...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jSpy9pLhosLTKfJOCFM3EK2RBEqg Another link with some more detail: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7073238.ece I thought this was interesting, since I just started studying some Arab poetry. It is good to see a woman wil...

I wish there were more incentives within the insurance industry to lower costs by taking better care of one's own health. Discounts like the auto insurance industry has for being a "good driver". Obviously, it wouldn't be fair to give people a discount for being healthy since so much of o...

Interesting, Anthy. Why don't they? It's not contagious, as far as I know. Thanks for claryfying, I just went by what he told me. I've never given blood - I tend to be borderline anemic. Should get on iron pills again. I had thought it might not be allowed because the high level of iron in their bl...

Oh, I haven't spammed this board yet? So here goes. =:) I found the full With Fire and Sword on YouTube, with English subtitles. It's an epic based on the classic Polish novel, a romance set on the background of a war that Ukrainian Cossacks (not these Cossacks, these Cossacks ) waged against Polan...

vison wrote:When you do, , find out what he was up to chucking Gandalf off the bridge.

I think it was intended as a Monty Python reference.

BrianIs AtYou

The temptation that would have confronted Aragorn, I concluded some years ago, is what the story of Arwen is about, and why that story is in the appendix at all along with the account of both their deaths. Aragorn, in my opinion, was Sauron’s primary target from the moment the Shadow rose again in ...

Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a “takeover,” that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is most...

Sassafras (and all the others). I had not read the whole thread before, and even now there are parts that I only skimmed. When this was started I had limited access as I was away from home, helping my parents who both were ill, and I did not get to read the beginning of the thread and went to the en...

Frelga wrote:sane cows and mad government.

I feel like that should be the title of an album or a poem or something.

BrianIs AtYou

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/07/pakistan.alqaeda.american/?hpt=T1 I'm very concerned about the recent turbulence in Pakistan. My brother's wife is going next month to Karachi and Islamabad for a few weeks. She is going with her father, and my two little nieces and nephew will be coming a...

http://www.kyw1060.com/Lower-Merion-School-District-Admits-Webcam-Spying/6395646 I find this disturbing. Thoughts? The original rationale (to check when laptops were stolen) seems to have been forgotten, and simple spying by the School District occurred--because they could. Personally, I am aware th...

From NPR: The accelerator does not a physical connection to the engine but an electronic one. Toyota took that tech from German Luxury cars and started applying it in around 2000-2001 in its cars. However, the German cars also have another bit of technology - a brake over-ride. Effectively, if you ...

Funny that a picture of Elijah Wood as Frodo has the caption, "J.R.R. Tolkien was a well-regarded Beowulf scholar", implying that the picture is of Tolkien himself. I disagree with Hannan about the verse he quotes ("The dwarves of yore"): it is not in alliterative meter. The ver...

Well, Phil Jones is in continually worse shape. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese On the other hand, Michael Mann has been largely exonerated: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/science/earth/04climate.html?scp=2&sq=Michael%20Mann%20Penn%20Stat...

The other issue that is often avoided in the discussion of positives and negatives is the issue of fact-checking and whether or not the evaluations correlate to accurate representations of facts and accurate representations of politicians stances. Then there is the question of whether you agree with...

Is Fox a broadcast network? that one. You seem to be implying that there are different standards applied to broadcast and cable networks about what is "balanced." I'm not sure why that would be. No-no... I meant that Fox is a broadcast network - and the quote talked about "broadcast ...

Infidel wrote:Fox News: Fair And Balanced?

So the broadcast networks gave good marks to one candidate and bad marks to another, while Fox was tough on both--and most balanced overall.

There's an obvious logical fallacy here which you failed to acknowledge in quoting this.

BrianIs AtYou