Ed Loy has returned to Dublin after 20 years in Los Angeles to bury his mother. An old friend asks him to find her missing husband. This sends him into a viper’s nest of corruption among property developers and upwardly mobile gangsters, as he confronts the demons of his past.

Loy, after his long, self-imposed exile, finds a very different Dublin to the one that he left. The economic miracle known as the Celtic Tiger has wrought huge changes over the last 15 years, cat­a­pult­ing Ireland from a country that haem­or­rhaged …continue.

Keith Olbermann was on fire tonight, condemning the insanity of escalating a lost war that the American public so clearly wants no more of.

Only this president could look out over a vista of 3,008 dead and 22,834 wounded in Iraq, and finally say, “Where mistakes have been made, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty rests with me” — only to follow that by proposing to repeat the identical mistake … in Iran.

…-

And yet — without any au­tho­riza­tion from the public, which spoke so loudly and clearly to you in November’s elections — without any con­sul­ta­tion with a Congress (in which key members of your own party, including Sens. Sam Brownback, Norm Coleman and Chuck …continue.

Fifty years hence, Janus, one of the moons of Saturn, suddenly leaves its orbit and starts heading for Spica, 260 light years away. Only the mining ship Rockhopper can intercept what is now apparent as a long-dormant alien artifact and learn something about it. Things go wrong and the ship crash lands on Janus, as it heads towards Spica at near-rel­a­tivis­tic speed. The crew splits into factions led by the captain, Bella Lind, and the chief engineer, Svetlana Barseghian, once the best of friends, now implacable enemies.

Reynolds tells an exciting tale of big ideas, …continue.

I gave a speech at Freely Speaking Toast­mas­ters this evening, on Mind Mapping. You can see a shrunken version of the mind map for the speech above. Clicking on it will lead to the full-sized image.

I created the mind map with Freemind. Here’s the speech mindmap as a Freemind document.

I thought the speech went quite well. It was speech #8, working with visual aids. I drew a partial version of my speech’s mind map on a white board ahead of time, and drew a couple of mind maps on a flip chart during the speech. The second one was a two-minute brain­storm­ing session on increasing club membership.

I had intended to record …continue.

This recipe comes from my mother, who has used it for many years. I added the soaking of the fruit in hot water.

Fruit-based Christmas cake is considered a treat in Ireland, not a thing of horror, as so many Americans regard it.

Makes one round cake in a 10"x"3"-tall cake pan or two cakes in 8"x3" pans".

Note: For the raisins, you can substitute stoned muscat raisins or valentias if you wish. Be careful to only take the stone and leave the flesh. I usually cut them in half as they …continue.

The first of three equally long volumes of historical fiction by Neal Stephenson, who is better known for his spec­u­la­tive fiction. This is a prequel of sorts to Crypto­nom­i­con, featuring the distant ancestors of the Waterhouse and Shaftoe characters.

Quick­sil­ver primarily takes place in late 17th century Europe, the baroque era where giants such as Newton, Leibniz, Hooke, and Huygens brought about a new un­der­stand­ing of the world. Daniel Waterhouse, a Puritan scholar, moves among them, knowing that he is not a good enough Natural …continue.

Three very screwed-up Londoners kidnap a Rilke-spouting busi­ness­man and hold him for hostage. There’s a horrified fas­ci­na­tion as it inevitably goes pear shaped. Written in a spare, first-person style, it’s short, but certainly not sweet.

The fourth in­stall­ment in Traviss’s series about the wess’har, which began with City of Pearl. The plot is too complex to summarize here, and would make little sense if you haven’t read the preceding books.

This is in­tel­li­gent, character-driven SF, written for adults. A small cast of humans interact with four very different alien races, far from home. These aliens are not Americans with green skin; they live by different rules. The humans are flawed people who struggle with complex issues.

Traviss’s themes include ecology, ethics, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. She also throws in some action and enough …continue.