Shoveling snow and drying off the dog

Shoveling snow and drying off the dog March 5, 2015

The Anti-Christ Handbook has now sold 515 copies! For obvious reasons, I’d really like to see it sell at least 151 more. Thanks again for spreading the word.

• Philadelphia recently passed legislation guaranteeing paid sick leave for workers in the city. This is enormously popular because: A) Most Philadelphians are workers (or children who rely on the income of people who work); B) Most Philadelphians occasionally get sick; and C) Most Philadelphians occasionally eat food prepared or handled by other people and we’d prefer that those other people aren’t sniffling into the soup.

But now Republican legislators in Harrisburg are pushing a state law that would overturn Philly’s law and prohibit any other city or town here in Pennsylvania from passing a similar statute. I get that such a bill may appeal to the pennywise and pound-foolish owners of a few large businesses, and that some of those business-owners may also be wealthy campaign donors. But still — on what planet does it make political sense to come out against paid sick days?

What’s the up-side to proclaiming yourself to be the party of contagious food-handlers?

• Illiteracy, thy name is Robby Gallatry:

GallatryTweet

And when, in scenes of glory, we sing the new, new song
‘Twill be the old, old account or encounter, that we have loved so long.

(Peter Enns is always helpful for an antidote to this kind of thing.)

• Phyllis Schlafly spends so much time railing against feminism that sometimes you almost forget that she’s also incredibly racist.

• Here’s conservative columnist Cal Thomas discussing the likelihood that the Supreme Court will soon uphold marriage equality: “If you read the Scriptures, as I do, in both testaments all of these things are forecast in prophesies, in the book of Daniel and what Jesus and Paul said, so I’m not worried about it.”

Chapter and verse, buddy. You’re going to need to be a bit more specific. (The book of Daniel does include a vision of a four-headed, winged leopard. So maybe the four heads represent Justices Ginsburg, Kagan, Sotomayor and Breyer, while the wings represent Justice Kennedy as the swing-vote in a 5-4 ruling?)

Chris O’Brien lives in Toulouse, France, where he spends $63 a month for telecom: “100 Mbps download speed, 250 cable channels, a home telephone with unlimited international calling, and a mobile phone that includes unlimited minutes and 3GB of data usage each month.” (via AZspot)

I live near Philadelphia, where we spend way more than that for far, far slower “broadband.” But we also have the lovely Comcast Center in downtown Philly. Surely the prestige of having such an elegant building as part of our skyline is well worth the tradeoff of ridiculously overpriced, shamefully slow Internet access.

• PlaybackFM now has a fun little feature that lets you look up what song was No. 1 on the pop chart on the day you were born. I got a good one — Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY4QB1bkL3g

I can get a little more specific, though, and tell you which song was actually playing on the radio at the moment I was born. Depending on the station, it was either Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” or “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

 

 

 


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