Sen. George Allen and the “M” word

"Macaca," that is.  Salon.com is reporting that Sen. George Allen is denying the claims in a separate Salon article by three of Allen’s former football teammates that Allen used a racial epithet and demonstrated racist behavior during college. Within hours of Allen's denial, though, two additional acquaintances of Allen's had…

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Video Interview of Richard Dawkins discussing his new book: The God Delusion

In this lively 9-minute interview, Dawkins discusses his new book, The God Delusion. The interviewer, Jeremy Paxman, asked Dawkins what he intended to accomplish with his book.  Here’s Dawkins’ answer: I hope to persuade . . . a substantial number of middle of the road people that there’s nothing wrong…

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How I almost ate a worm.

Worms are fascinating critters.  There’s no getting around it.  Or maybe they’ve just seemed fascinating, ever since I first read Gary Larson’s hilarious 1999 book, There’s a hair in my dirt!  A Worm’s Story. 

Now, though, worms have made it to the big screen.  Last week I took my two young children to a movie called “How to Eat Fried Worms.”  We all enjoyed the movie, which provided some lessons on eating earthworms, as well as a lesson or two on getting along.  Click here for more information on the movie, which features a large cast of youngsters, along with Tom Cavanagh and Kimberly Williams.

There’s an interesting side story here. I was surprised that the book on which the movie is based has been the target of censors

Because of the novel’s content, the idea of eating worms as part of a bet is thought to be disgusting by some, it has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number ninety six.

Amazing, eh?  But back to the main topic of my post. I’d like to tell you the story about how I ate worms . . . but I can’t.  I didn’t even come close. 

Watching “How to Eat Fried Worms” reminded me of the time I was visiting Guangzhou, China in 2001 with my wife and our newly adopted daughter.  We were traveling with a large group …

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Why Americans think Democrats are weak

Take a look at this Ellis Weiner post on Huffpo. His main point?  He claims that something has been long overlooked, despite its current obviousness: The reason Americans think the Democratic Party is "weak on terror" or "weak on security" is because Democrats don't stand up to Republicans. Could anything…

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Rules for being a (Bush-supporting) Republican

This comprehensive list pretty well captures it for me, at least as a description of those Republicans who still strongly support Bush.  Here's a few of my favorites: You must believe that folks who work for their money should be taxed at a high rate, but those who get their money…

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