Kăn′dənt

Fully Buzzword-Compliant

Libby Copeland has unsheathed her vorpal sword to dispense with all sorts of fantastic phrases in her recent special report for the Washington Post:

If we strain, we can recall a time before the leak probe, when yellowcake was for birthdays, and we knew not how to properly pronounce Niger.  (That's Nee-jehr, darlings.)  After Friday's five-count indictment of vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, we consider how far we have come, with this look at the lexicon of the Plame Game.

“Ordinary people without licence will carry on inventing words and idioms.  The language belongs to them too.”  —Philip Howard

How to Kill a Mockingbird

How to Kill a Mockingbird is an entertaining book report by Anthony Scodary and Nico Benitez that is only loosely based on To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  I won’t describe this large flash animation any further.  You’ll have to see it yourself.

Tueller Drill

One would think that a gun beats a knife every time.  With superior weaponry, the fight should be easily won.  But Dennis Tueller showed that it was not that simple.

Pop vs. Soda

You know you’re in The South when you’re asked, “What kind of Coke would you like?  I’ve got Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Dr. Pepper.”  Now The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy has been thoroughly studied, and you can see county by county what the most popular generic name for soft drink is for different parts of the United States.  Also interesting are dialectal surveys of aunt, coupon, mischievous and others.

New Pictures

I finally finished organizing all of my pictures from my last trip to Slovakia (October–December), so there are quite a few new pictures in my photo gallery.  The biggest chunk of new pictures are from Slovakia, but there are also some from other places too.

A few of the better shots are the Frozen Hawthorn, Lonely Trio, Danube Bridge at Night, Rybník Bašovce Lake and The Rock House.

King Gyanendra the Devious Elf?

In the same journalistic tradition that juxtaposed John Ashcroft with the Majesty of Justice, King Gyanendra of Nepal has been transformed into a devious elf.

Photo Gallery Announcement

I have now created a photo gallery.  Most of the pictures have been taken with my Canon PowerShot A80.  The gallery includes a lot of pictures from my trip to Slovakia in May 2004.

Congressional Response to the ACLU’s “Support the Freedom to Read!” Action Item

I have recieved an interesting response in regards to the fax I sent to Representative Patrick Tiberi from the ACLU’s Action Center item, “Support the Freedom to Read!”