bfwebster on December 31st, 2006

Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard has a link to a wonderful set of archives: the complete scanned (and searchable) archives of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (a newspaper) from 1841 to 1902. I love sources of information like this: they remind us both of how different life was back then and, simultaneously, how similar it was.
And [...]

Continue reading about A window into the past

bfwebster on December 30th, 2006

The low pressure system causing this storm has shifted east and south, limiting the blizzard impact to the eastern and southern portions of Colorado — which means at this point, we’re not going to get much more in the way of snow. I spent two hours snowblowing the driveway early yesterday evening, and it’s stayed [...]

Continue reading about The Great Denver Blizzard — Round 2 — moving away

bfwebster on December 29th, 2006

In which a woman reminisces about how her (former Marine) father taught her to stand up to some bullies when she was six years old:
My Mother balked at this idea. She didn’t think little girls should be fighting. Little girls were supposed to have tea parties and then play dress up. Fighting was for little [...]

Continue reading about The fine art of self-defense

bfwebster on December 29th, 2006

[Updated 12/30/06] A thought just hit me: I wonder how many Americans will see the flags at half-mast for the death of Pres. Gerald Ford and think instead that they have been lowered for Saddam Hussein? (As a side note, I’ve cleaned up the formatting of the comments below.)
Saddam Hussein, one of the [...]

Continue reading about The Moonbats are far too predictable

I did go out last night and spent an hour or so getting the driveway cleared off — it’s much easier and faster when you only have 2″ to 8″ of snow on the driveway instead of 2′ to 5′. Getting up this morning, I see there isn’t that much more new snow — only [...]

Continue reading about The Great Denver Blizzard — Round 2 — Dodging the Bullet (sort of)

bfwebster on December 28th, 2006

Given that Colorado is, for the second time in as many weeks, in a declared state of emergency — and I, of course, am in the declared state of Colorado — I thought this might be a good time to join in the discussion that’s been going on around the blogosphere during the past year [...]

Continue reading about Some Thoughts on Emergency Preparedness

bfwebster on December 28th, 2006

Well, what a few days ago was looking like a day or two of “light snow” has turned into a prolonged storm (in two waves) that may end up leaving as much snow as the Christmas Blizzard did a week ago. As noted, we’re facing two storms; the first is expected to leave somewhere between [...]

Continue reading about The Great Denver Blizzard: Round 2

bfwebster on December 27th, 2006

The Vance Integral Edition (VIE) is one of the more remarkable publishing feats of the last 50 years. It is a 44-volume set of the complete works of Jack Vance, corrected and restored (as far as possible) to the author’s original manuscripts and titles with the direct help and cooperation of Jack Vance and his [...]

Continue reading about The Vance Integral Edition (VIE): A Review (Introduction)

bfwebster on December 27th, 2006

Uh oh; here we go again. From the National Weather Service, as of 4:30 am this morning:
A WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM THURSDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH FRIDAY AFTERNOON.
HEAVY SNOWFALL IS POSSIBLE ACROSS ALL OF NORTHEAST COLORADO THURSDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH FRIDAY. THIS INCLUDES THE DENVER METRO AREA AND ALL THE URBAN CORRIDOR. ACCUMULATIONS…IN [...]

Continue reading about Blizzard Redux

Over the past few years, the mainstream media has done a fair amount of sniffing over the arriviste mob of bloggers and how they aren’t real journalist, while ignoring their own propensity for bias, sloppiness, and logical fallacies. This made it all the more, ah, delicious to read one the best, most methodical examples of [...]

Continue reading about Investigative reporting at its finest — and it involves chocolate