Open for Business

10/09/2025

This week, Jason Kettinger talks about Lincoln and today's flawed politicians. "The country we have now, if there is something to preserve, we owe it to Mr. Lincoln."

If you must know, the politician I admire the most was nevertheless wrong about most issues: William Jennings Bryan. So sticking up for Lincoln is not something I do from ideology, or if it is ideology, it’s only in the broadest possible sense. The country we have now, if there is something to pre...

27/08/2025

“Change constantly masquerades as improvement and we blindly believe it nearly as often.” Timothy R. Butler reflects on lessons for Apple, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, and the rest of us.

The Cracker Barrel rebrand ought to remind everyone, change and improvement are not the same. Amongst others, I hope Apple is listening.

22/08/2025

Some piles of garbage are better than others. But if you asked me which one I’d like to lie down in, I’d say, “None of them.” The answer should be the same when answering about which sort of politics should influence Christianity.

21/08/2025

"Those who missed the early-ish days of will one day be like Vietnam and Woodstock: far more claiming to have been a there than there ever were or could have been."

Those who missed the early-ish days of Linux will one day be like Vietnam and Woodstock: far more claiming to have been a there than there ever were or could have been.

14/08/2025

My congregation got a preview of a new show set in Biblical times. By the looks of the clips, it could be a spinoff of The Chosen. There’s just one peculiar difference that makes all the difference, for good or ill, and takes us on an ethical journey.

My congregation got a preview of a new show set in Biblical times. By the looks of the clips, it could be a spinoff of The Chosen. There’s just one peculiar difference that makes all the difference, for good or ill.

06/08/2025

"Nuclear war was invented 80 years ago today. [...] , Japan's equivalent to our , makes much of the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As you would expect, it is unreservedly condemned."

Nuclear war was invented 80 years ago today. It was tried again three days later. Perhaps unfortunately, it worked.

31/07/2025

Dennis E. Powell writes, “We learned Sunday of the death of Tom Lehrer. [..] Subversive with a wink, Tom Lehrer was publicly known in the late 1950s and 1960s as an extremely perceptive composer and performer of ironic songs about the condition of our national and universal society.”

When we learned Sunday of the death of Tom Lehrer, my reaction was that I suspect was that of many: He was still alive?

30/07/2025

What would happen if you took the classic layout and look of the Model M and rebuilt it with modern mechanical guts? Vortex decided to find out and the result is a unique keyboard with one foot in two different decades. Passed up the Legend itself because it lacks too many modern comforts? Then read on for the Remix.

What would happen if you took the classic layout and look of the Model M and rebuilt it with modern mechanical guts? Vortex decided to find out and the result is a unique keyboard with one foot in two different decades. Passed up the Legend itself because it lacks too many modern comforts? Then read...

24/07/2025

Dennis E. Powell: ”Were a list compiled of my manifold sins and wickedness, near the top of that very long list would be my affection for gadgets that I imagined I needed and therefore purchased. Usually it turned out I didn't actually need them at all." https://ofb.biz/sa1336

17/07/2025

It wasn't devastating news, but it wasn't the kind of thing you want the first thing Saturday morning, either. According to the report, which I guess had been kicking around for a few days but I didn't see it until Saturday, the Google company has plans to destroy my Google Pixel 6a cellular telephone. They had already done it to Pixel 4a telephones.

It wasn’t devastating news, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you want the first thing Saturday morning, either. According to the report, which I guess had been kicking around for a few days but I didn’t see it until Saturday, the Google company has plans to destroy my Google Pixel 6a cellular t...

17/07/2025

From Jason Kettinger: “This year’s version of The Championships still had the shadow of The Big Three (Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic) lurking over it, though only Djokovic remained. The manner of his dismissal suggests the future of men’s tennis is now.”

This year’s version of The Championships still had the shadow of The Big Three (Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic) lurking over it, though only Djokovic remains. Indeed, Djokovic made it all the way to a semifinal, before succumbing to his opponent, and an injury sustained in the previous round. The ma...

10/07/2025

I’m more proud to be a neoconservative now than I was in the loftiest days of the second Bush administration. A little lonelier, sure, but as strange as it may sound, I’m hoping I’m hoping and his can bring America back to the party.

Donald J. Trump

I’m more proud to be a neoconservative now than I was in the loftiest days of the second Bush administration. A little lonelier, sure, but as strange as it may sound, I’m hoping Elon Musk can bring America back to the party.