We twa hae run about the braes,
A "Prime" buyer in Virginia placed the last order on Dec. 23 through Amazon, receiving Futurama, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and Pulp Fiction DVDs, as well as Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (paperback) and a Bridge Over Troubled Water CD, according to the company, which extended its one-day shipping this year. --InformationWeek
"[The individual] must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life." --Ayn Rand
A Christian publisher said on Wednesday it has called off a parenting book written by Lynne Spears -- the mother of troubled pop star Britney Spears and her pregnant 16-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn. --Reuters
In what has become an annual tradition of prognostications, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in "mass killing" late in 2007.
"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network. "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."
Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September. ...
In 2005, Robertson predicted that Bush would have victory after victory in his second term. He said Social Security reform proposals would be approved. ...
In May, Robertson said God told him that storms and possibly a tsunami were to crash into America's coastline in 2006. Even though the US was not hit with a tsunami, Robertson on Tuesday cited last spring's heavy rains and flooding in New England as partly fulfilling the prediction.
Even when its new it works best on hard-ish vegetables like carrots or zucchini or potatos and less well on *juicy* veggies like onions or cucumbers. The more watery veggies tend to slice more unevenly and break apart.
... If you are cutting something even remotely hard (such as celeriac, or even an old big carrot) it will flex so much that your slices will not conform at all to the size you want them to be, ...
It really only works on hard vegetables...
Made the mistake of running a couple of sweet potatos on this. Now, it's a goner. Only made for softer veggies, ...
Nowadays Huckabee has more policy positions, but his campaign is really all about his Christian character. His slogan is "Faith, Family, Freedom," which Huckabee, who was once a public-relations man for the Texas televangelist James Robison, wrote himself. ...
In late November, Huckabee began running a short television ad called "Believe." It starts with the candidate declaring, "Faith doesn’t just influence me, it really defines me." As he speaks, the words "Christian Leader" flash across the screen. --Profile of Mike Huckabee in tomorrow's New York Times
"I've been under that microscope for quite some time, and it's certainly intensifying. All the sharp knives in the kitchen have been brought out of the drawers now that we're leading in polls all over the country. The interesting thing is that there seems to be a great deal more attention on … really, an intense scrutiny on the details of my faith, than there is on anybody else's, including Mitt Romney's. Every day there is some new nuance about the Baptist faith, some statement I made 15, 20, 25 years ago that gets a lot of attention." --Mike Huckabee, in an NPR interview
The publisher where I work is moving to an "open floor plan" next year, meaning no more offices--all cubicles and a big open space. Reached by phone, Derober's John Resig, 29, spilled the beans and laughingly marveled at the hoax's success. "How many people get on the front page of Fox News with a story that doesn't contain one single ounce of truth?" he wondered in amazement.
A simple apéritif of shochu, garnished with tiny morsels of pear cut in leaf and star shapes, tastes the way you imagine dew might. Monkfish liver is presented in a vase of pebbles, abalone on a cushion of salt; you get to sear small rectangles of beef on a terrifyingly hot shiny stone. Dried mullet roe (which you grill over an open flame) looks like carrot, has the consistency of bean curd, and tastes like anchovy, only more so. Coupled with a rectangular tablet of daikon radish, it looks uncannily like a mah-jongg tile. Aigamo duck comes with a cake of mochi—a kind of rice polenta with a texture between dough and string cheese but stickier than either. (In Japan, people occasionally suffocate while eating it.) The kaiseki meal culminates in a dish that might seem plain: steamed rice. But the silvery Koshihikari rice from Uonuma is highly prized, and here it is served with condiments including twice-grilled salmon as light and brittle as a cracker and as salty and desiccated as jerky.
I must admit, with some unease, my initial obtuseness toward Comme des Garçons 2 Man, one of the 10 greatest works of perfumery art in the world.
The perfumer Mark Buxton built the upper decks of this sleekest of vessels out of C11 ISO, a synthetic molecule that smells of clean pressed fire, if you can imagine such a thing; ...
... the pine-scented synthetic C12 MNA; ...
... and a high-quality natural Haitian vetiver that smells like dust on jungle trees.
But the hull is frankincense from Oman, an incense cool as cream, warm as onion-skin stationery, glossy and slick as a traffic light in the rain.
This technically flawless perfume (it diffuses like radium) ...
... smells more beautiful than one can say, like a perfect chord in an empty echo chamber.
Herodotus warned that frankincense was dangerous to harvest because poisonous snakes lived in the Arabian trees that contained it, and I do believe my first reaction to 2 Man was, in part, fear.
This perfume is not just extraordinary. It is perfect.
