Your friend and mine: Google now has a video search (beta search of closed caption text available online — no actual video yet, but how much do you want to bet that’s in the works as more and more video is made available online?)

So I was thinking, why worry about keeping the vacuum in the closet when we can just cover it up?

[via boingboing]

“Intelligent Design” seems to be the buzzword du jour.

This makes me angry. Very angry. Terrified that suddenly, we could be teaching our children science using theories and ideas that aren’t based in any kind of science.

Frankly, religious education is the place to teach these ideas, not the same classes that dissect amphibians and learn the basic principles of chemistry. Science is–and always has been–grounded in research, in discovery, in experimentation. In theory, yes, but theories that just so happen to have a lot of EVIDENCE that makes them credible.

Religion doesn’t belong in that classroom. Period.

Ed. to Add: Thought I’d add a quote from the Time piece that sums up how I feel about this. “[Intelligent Design] appalls the many scientists and science teachers who believe in evolution and also believe in God. ‘I accept evolution as the best scientific explanation for life as we know it,’ says Jeremy Mohn, a self-described “very religious” Methodist who teaches biology at Blue Valley Northwest High School, just a few minutes’ drive from Bingman’s school. ‘I also believe that God is ultimately responsible for the process. But it’s not our job to dust for fingerprints.’”

Mark Frauenfelder at boingboing points out author Mark Dery’s hilariously over-the-top yet absolutely dead-on rant on “Not One More Damn Dime Day”, the “economic boycott” intended to “protest” yesterday’s Presidential inauguration. Awesome.

The Catholic church defrocked the Irish-born priest who upset the men’s Olympic marathon in Athens last summer by leaping on the front-runner.

…Earlier Horan arrived at the Archbishop’s House armed with press releases and a mini tape recorder. Before going into the meeting he performed an Irish jig and preached the importance of the bible.

Horan was given a one-year suspended sentence by a Greek court last September after leaping on Brazilian runner Vanderli de Lima during the marathon, ruining his chances of winning the gold medal.

The Roman Catholic priest claimed that he was highlighting the “second coming” of Jesus Christ.

[via Warren]

Outgoing Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in an interview with The Australian, on his reflections and thoughts about the ups and downs of the last four years:

And Armitage’s disappointments? Not a lugubrious person, Armitage doesn’t nominate disappointments spontaneously. But he’ll answer a question honestly: “I’m disappointed that Iraq hasn’t turned out better. And that we weren’t able to move forward more meaningfully in the Middle East peace process.”
Then, after a minute’s pause, he adds a third regret: “The biggest regret is that we didn’t stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot.”

That’s probably the best summation of the last three years that anyone has ever made.

[via Kevin Drum]

Isn’t about time for the bubble to burst??

An article in today’s Washington Post tells us that property values in my beloved Arlington have gone up yet again. Up by 24 percent, in fact, in just one year. Looking across the last three years puts the jump at a whopping 70 percent increase.

70 percent?!? That’s nuts!!

Of course, we’ve all known this was happening. I live in a small, two-bedroom, one-bathroom rowhouse with an unfinished basement. All the houses in my neighborhood are identical in layout to mine (although some have finished basements with an extra bath). In the five years I’ve lived here, I’ve seen the resale value of these little boogers shoot up from around $200,000 to nearly $400,000! I couldn’t even afford to buy the front yard if I tried.

All I can say is, Thank God I did not try to buy a place, because I’d probably be living either in BFE or a slum in the city right now. Honestly, I don’t understand how people are affording these insane housing prices.

Another trend I’ve noticed in Arlington is the practice of destroy & build. Instead of fixing up or remodeling older houses, buyers are instead tearing them down completely and building new-fangled, gigundous homes.

I might understand this a little better if there were structural flaws in the homes. Sometimes, it can be less expensive to build anew rather than to fix and add-on. However, I can’t imagine this is the case in all these new homes.

Is this just a DC bubble, or is this happening back in the homestead as well?