Crooked Timber is hosting a seminar about one of my favorite books of the last decade (PDF version is here). Academic study and discussion of charming English fantasy novels? Sign me up.
Susanna Clarke’s novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell has been extraordinarily successful, and for good reason. It’s won both the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards, but has also won a vast readership among people who don’t usually care for fantasy. On the one hand, Neil Gaiman describes it as “unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years” (with the emphasis on the adjective “English”; see more below), on the other, Charles Palliser, author of the wonderful historical novel, The Quincunx, describes it as “absolutely compelling” and “an astonishing achievement.” We’ve been fans at Crooked Timber since the book came out – not least because it has funny, voluminous and digressive footnotes which seem near-perfectly calculated to appeal to a certain kind of academic….
Oh, and if you haven’t read JS & Mr. N, you’re missing out.
I’m just upset that I’m not on the list.
As the EU takes the first steps toward a future date with the Hague or International Criminal Court. Run, Busheviks, run! Your war criminal pasts are going to catch up to you. Your crimes against humanity are going to have you sitting next to Slobo.
The European Union’s top justice official has warned that any EU state found to have hosted a secret CIA jail could have its voting rights suspended.
Franco Frattini said the consequences would be “extremely serious” if reports of such prisons turned out to be true.
Of course, they can always play pinochle with Kissinger as they all huddle in Our Great Nation ™, where we never prosecute our own.
I wish this were a parody, but it’s not. The cowardice of the corporations in the face of ignorant anti-Darwinist zealotry is breathtaking.
An exhibition celebrating the life of Charles Darwin has failed to find a corporate sponsor because American companies are anxious not to take sides in the heated debate between scientists and fundamentalist Christians over the theory of evolution.
…
While the Darwin exhibition has been unable to find a business backer – unlike previous exhibitions at the museum – the Creationist Museum near Cincinatti, Ohio, which takes literally the Bible’s account of creation, has recently raised $7 million in donations.
He’s fucked like he’s never been fucked before
Earlier this month, attorneys say Fitzgerald received additional testimony from Ralston — who said that Rove instructed her not to log a phone call Rove had with Cooper about Plame in July 2003.
Ralston also provided Fitzgerald with more information and “clarification” about several telephone calls Rove allegedly made to a few reporters, including syndicated columnist Robert Novak, the lawyers said.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Oh, source for the quote used in the lede, btw. You know, in case you didn’t know and were just assuming I was adding the language of sexual domination to a totally awesome occurrence.
Bonus points for stupidity
A 40-year-old man is behind bars, accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars of a toy geared toward the 6-and-up crowd: Legos.
To haul away the evidence, agents working for the U.S. Postal Inspector said they had to back a 20-foot truck to William Swanberg’s house in Reno, Nev., carting away mountains of the multicolored bricks.
Swanberg was indicted Wednesday by a grand jury in Hillsboro, a Portland suburb, which charged him with stealing Legos from Target stores in Oregon. Target estimates Swanberg stole and resold on the Internet up to $200,000 of the brick sets pilfered from their stores in Oregon as well as Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California.
May your families be joyous and your traffic light.
How about wrongly executing a juvenile?
Texas executed its fifth teenage offender at 22 minutes after midnight on Aug. 24, 1993, after his last request for bubble gum had been refused and his final claim of innocence had been forever silenced.
Ruben Cantu, 17 at the time of his crime, had no previous convictions, but a San Antonio prosecutor had branded him a violent thief, gang member and murderer who ruthlessly shot one victim nine times with a rifle before emptying at least nine more rounds into the only eyewitness — a man who barely survived to testify.
Four days after a Bexar County jury delivered its verdict, Cantu wrote this letter to the residents of San Antonio: “My name is Ruben M. Cantu and I am only 18 years old. I got to the 9th grade and I have been framed in a capital murder case.”
A dozen years after his execution, a Houston Chronicle investigation suggests that Cantu, a former special-ed student who grew up in a tough neighborhood on the south side of San Antonio, was likely telling the truth.
… to make a “work at home” day into a “day at work” kind of day.
Annoying.
I can’t find any information on the security groups, but man I’m getting frequent visits from numerous auto-exploit kits. I’ve cleverly protected myself and my site from the lamers, but still… there have been a lot. I think my blacklist has doubled in the past week, and most of those arrived in the past day.
In other news, my networked color laser printer fuckin rules.
Now if only I had something to print…
Oppose Alito. Here’s an internet ad, with video.
President Bush is trying to fool Americans into thinking that Sam Alito is a mainstream judicial nominee, which is why PFAW is committed to exposing the truth about Alito’s record and his judicial philosophy. This ad recounts troubling Alito rulings and legal positions, including his voting to uphold a strip search of a 10-year old girl without a valid warrant, his unsuccessful effort as an appeals court judge to declare a law regulating machine guns unconstitutional, and his declaration while in the Justice Department that the Constitution does not protect a woman’s right to choose an abortion.
The guy’s an extremist nutjob, I’m telling you. Sign the petition too, while you’re there.
Faux News, of the 24/7 wall-to-wall coverage of the Swift Boat allegations, refuses to run the ad. Surprised?
Laser beam toy for cats
A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a chase instinct.
It’s only a worthless method patent, but still… c’mon, people.
Awesome. Even if he flops miserably, he’ll be a huge improvement over who they were throwing out there. We’re talking 4 W’s or so, and that’s worst-case, like 250/300/400 worst case.
Japanese catcher Kenji Johjima and the Seattle Mariners agreed to a $16.5 million, three-year contract Monday
Dude can rake. Given that he bats R, I’m going to guess at 18 HR from him.
