Time to do some bliggy-blaggy-bloggins

A collection of assorted observations and thoughts:

 

• On December 25th, will progressives celebrate the birth of Barack Obama?  AKIC guesses that they will be less inclined this year.
• I reading wookieleaks: the secret letters of Chewbacca to Han Solo.  Apparently, Chewie advised him to stay clear of Princess Leia.  There is speculation that Chewie was jealous.
• I have been watching a fictional news show called the CNN channel.  I hope they can hire Morgan Freeman to replace the actor they now have playing the president.  The current guy can't seem to remember his lines and can't seem to portray gravitas in a believable manner.
• I was listening to the latest Slate political gabfest (google it yourself).  No mention of conservative charges of the hypocrisy of the NYT publishing Wikileaks, but not the Climategate emails.  The hosts of the show also made the fantastic claim that Obama has spent all of his presidency trying to be bi-partisan.  When will they realize that Conservative and Progressive beliefs about fixing world problems are often incompatible.  It seems their idea of bi-partisanship is Conservatives agreeing to their stupid ideas.
• Students tell me that Wuxi is being completely done over.  I believe them.  The amount of construction going on here never fails to astonish me.  Everywhere I see a new construction project or an hit hereto unseen area of cleared urban scape.  It seems so economically unwise.  Shouldn't the current retail and residential spaces be occupied, or somewhere near occupation before new construction is even contemplated?  There is so much malinvestment, in the form of unoccupied retail or office space, to be seen.
• I thought Tony Blair was sounding too defensive in his religion debate with Christopher Hitchens.  You can't score points playing defense unless you play American Football.  In other sports, you have to attack, attack, attack.  Blair should have attacked Hitchens' Leftist Trotyskism.  Hitchens is a vocal atheist for two reasons:  he had a tragedy with his mother that fulls him with righteous indignation, and he has a Leftist past that he would not have too much light shone on.  Leftists are good at saying what is wrong with everything without an idea of what is beter.  Leftists think everything is poisoned.  And if you beleive in utopias, everything is poisoned.
• Is man perfectible?
• Catholicism talks of Love, Truth, Man, and God.  Chesterton talks of the paradox of existence.  Atheism talk of reason -- whatever that is.  So much of we say, that appears reasonable, is not when put under close scrutiny.  Much of what we say that first appears fantastic is reasonable in a counter-intuitive and paradoxical manner.
• Man is not great:  How Humanity poisons everything.
• Nothing is sacred?  No religion would mean no sanctity?  Anything goes?
• Does Religion cause Racism?
• Is there love in atheism?
• At Tesco on Monday, I saw someone buy an "Xmas" decoration.  That is, the decoration did not say "Christmas".  I loathe the use of the "X" instead of "Christ".  I'd advise students not to use the "X" either, while telling them what the two sides of the issue of this are.
• Chinese sleep on the bus.  I can't do that.
• Cost to ride the bus in Wuxi: 1 or 2 rmb.  That's not even forty cents Canadian.  Is it sustainable?
• How many foreigners did I see on my day off?  None.
• I look at the NHL standings regularly.  But I might as well be staring at standings randomly generated by a computer program.  I don't know any of the personalities involved on the teams.  In my mind's eye, I look at Montreal in the standings and the teams of the 1970s appear, with no helmets.
• Blueberry flavoured Halls throat candy.  Mmmmm!!!
• I have yet to see a NHL game that has been decided by shootout.