I know. It’s been a while. I keep pledging to update more regularly, and I keep not updating more regularly. But now that I’m home sick for the day, I figure this is as good a time as ever.

Thing the First: No more Mubarak! The Egyptian people win. But it’s important to remember that Mubarak and Nasser both rose up through the military too… so putting the military in charge is only as good as making sure that whichever general rises to the top doesn’t do the same thing. Still, the fact that the people did what they did should strike fear into the hearts of dictators around the world. (I know I haven’t said anything profound here, but I really wanted an excuse to post the image below.)

via someecards

Thing the Second: If you haven’t read The New Yorker‘s unbelievable article on Scientology, you really must. Stories like this are why we still need long-form real journalism in this country, and the kind of thing that even the biggest army of bloggers can’t put together.

Someone on one of the political blogs I frequent used the word 'lolronhubbard' and it inspired me to create this.

Thing the Third: Does anyone know a WordPress plugin that can syndicate the links I post to Facebook? Most of my commentary is going up over there these days, but I don’t want to either (a) put my Facebook stuff public (for rather obvious reasons) or (b) have to do everything twice. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? (My students didn’t get that joke the other day, because they were born after the fall of the Soviet Union. I feel old.)