Miscellaneous Rambling Far out: Italy joins the United States and Britain in rejecting the centralizing efforts of the elites [https://www.yahoo.com/news/italys-renzi-loses-referendum-constitutional-reform-exit-polls-221129482.html] . The Popularism tide continues to roll. In a past life, such a thing would've made me nervous, but in light of the

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Congratulations, Penn State! Big Ten Champs! And still the ugliest institution in America, a school that, out of common decency, should have disbanded its football program after the Sandusky scandal . . . the cover-up, the facilitation, the student riots when they thought their precious football program might suffer. Heck, I'm

I've been reading (too much) about the dubia controversy. It seems Carl Olson's recent essay about the whole affair offers the best summary and analysis. It's worth a read: "The Four Cardinals and the Encyclical in the Room [http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/

Great drinking lore, courtesy of the British Museum:

Footage of Corktown. Notice the huge swaths of darkness. You can't see anything . . . because there isn't anything to see. It's just vacant blackness.

Miscellaneous Rambling: Detroit An old philosophical problem: If you're sitting in an otherwise pitch black room with a single candle burning it, are you noticing the candle or the darkness? I traveled to downtown Detroit Friday night. My in-laws told me about a great cocktail bar in Corktown

Miscellaneous Rambling: Football About once a year, I see one of my teams get so spiflicated by bad referring that I doubt the integrity of the game. Normally, it is with the Detroit Lions, who, as ESPN's Mike Wilbon (a Bears fan) noted last year, "How many

Welcome to Advent. I enter mine worn out and weary. I'm hoping to rebound. If you need a boost, too, maybe these will help. From GKC's The Everlasting Man: “Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether he likes