Another mystery boom wakes people in region A second loud boom may have rattled windows in parts of Rockland County yesterday - and its origin remains as mysterious as the explosive noise that blew through southern Westchester County over the weekend. "It was about 5:15 a.m., and it woke up the whol...

When I first came back to the fold, I had picked up the idea that not eating meat on Fridays was something that Catholics used to do, but Vatican II had done away with all that, because it really wasn't very practical... and anyway, quite a lot of the world's population never ate meat at all due to...

Time to end the multigenerational Ponzi scheme (Kim Stanley Robinson) Does the word postcapitalism look odd to you? It should, because you hardly ever see it. We have a blank spot in our vision of the future. Perhaps we think that history has somehow gone away. In fact, history is with us now more t...

Two young guys, as always, and very awkward. I let the talker finish telling me who he was and why he was on my front porch. He said, "We're from the Church of Christ of LDS and we're sharing the story of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." And then he just stood there, and there was an awkward silen...

Inside a Congolese Displaced Persons Camp - photo by Georgianne Nienaber Nkunda’s Pilgrimage of Reconciliation The YouTube video is amateurish and grainy, but the images are irrefutable testimony. The date is August 6, 2006 in the tiny village of Nyamitabo in eastern Congo—a region where warfare...

First of all, can I just say what a pleasure it is to get reviewed by science fiction sites? In addition to the kind thoughts from Pink Raygun , we can now add these fantastic reviews from SF Scope and Tor . Incidentally, while the Tor review is overall positive - it's hard to beat " unless...

Laurence England writes a really good blog. He also is fortunate enough to attend an excellent parish (Fr. Ray Blake, the PP, is a really wonderful priest!) Laurence has been reading up (via The Telegraph ) on Cherie Blair's latest project: speaking on Channel 4's History of Christianity programme t...

Still waiting for your metaphorical flying car? Author and disciplined futurist Charles Stross wants a few words with you: Assuming we avoid a systemic collapse, there'll probably be a moon base, by and by. Whether it's American, Chinese, Indian, or Indonesian is anybody's guess, and probably doesn'...

After the last book-related post I wrote, I received an email, through a mutual friend, from Brian of Catholic Word: would I be interested in receiving review copies of books? Is the Pope a Catholic? Well, yesterday I received a parcel. I love parcels. I'm not so fond of those styrofoam "peanuts" wh...

Not enough rave reviews of UNIVERSAL ROBOTS the other day? Think there should be two more? Here's one. Here's two. I'm such a dick. Seriously though, we sold out again last night, and that was a Wednesday. You definitely want to grab your tickets now if it seems like something you&...