A couple of links for you kind readers today. Mostly I spent the day baking cookies and finishing the first season of Star Wars Rebels<\/i>. Which ends, by the way, with a pretty intense three-part story. And the droid, Chopper, remains a psychopathic asshole.<\/p>\n
Irish Whiskey Cookies, Perfect for Christmas<\/a> – Science! A friend posted a link to this recipe on Facebook a few days ago, I went out and bought myself a bottle of Jamesons, and this morning-ish I baked myself some cookies. I made a slight change to the recipe — I replaced the chopped almonds with chocolate chips. There’s a wonderful interplay of flavors, and my apartment smells of whiskey. Recommended.<\/span> Irish Central<\/em><\/p>\n Can the Constitution Govern America’s Sprawling Empire?<\/a> – The Constitution was written for an agrarian, pre-industrial society. Does it still work today for a United States that is more than just the fifty states — there are commonwealths, a federal district, overseas dependencies, and Indian tribes to consider as well.<\/span> The Atlantic<\/em><\/p>\n The Pre-Fab “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”<\/a> – A thoughtful take on the new Star Wars<\/i> film, delving into its derivative nature. It’s a pastiche of a Star Wars<\/em> movie. <\/span> The New Yorker<\/em><\/p>\n The Problem With The Force Awakens And Spectre: Not Just Sequels But Pastiches<\/a> – In that vein, Grant Feller at Forbes<\/i> considers the extent to which some of today’s blockbuster films — such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens<\/i>, the James Bond film Spectre<\/i>, and Jurassic World<\/i> — are less sequels than remakes (or remixes) of previous hits. Also, I love that critics are using the word “pastiche.” It’s absolutely<\/i> the right word, and it’s the word I used on Facebook Thursday night when I got home to describe Star Wars: The Force Awakens<\/i>. Forbes<\/em><\/p>\n Meet the Fox News atheist – the man Bill O\u2019Reilly calls a fascist and Sean Hannity thinks is evil<\/a> – A profile of American Atheists president David Silverman. His new book, Fighting God, came out last month. I’ve met David a few times over the years at science-fiction conventions. He’s a pretty cool guy. I like Silverman’s characterization of Hannity a lot. I think Hannity is… well… dim<\/i>.<\/span> Salon<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A couple of links for you kind readers today. Mostly I spent the day baking cookies and finishing the first season of Star Wars Rebels. Which ends, by the way, with a pretty intense three-part story. And the droid, Chopper, remains a psychopathic asshole. Irish Whiskey Cookies, Perfect for Christmas – Science! A friend postedContinue reading “Link Round-Up: December 20”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[4104,4342,775,4346,4345,235,4343,4344,4114,4319],"class_list":["post-29780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asides","tag-atheism","tag-baking","tag-bill-oreilly","tag-constitutional-law","tag-david-silverman","tag-fox-news","tag-irish-whiskey","tag-sean-hannity","tag-star-wars","tag-star-wars-the-force-awakens","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}