Category: Uncategorized

David Freddoso at The Examiner thinks that a story claiming that Wikileaks is a government plot is a tin foil hat theory. I’m not so sure. Document dumps with lots of verifiable facts plus a few ringers is a standard and very old way to plant false information where it will do some good (the…

When I was checking myself out at the grocery store the other day, I saw a new sign on the keypad: WIC NOT ALLOWED IN SCO Hmmm…. For a couple of seconds, I felt bureaucratically challenged. Then I realized that “WIC” meant the welfare debit cards that always seem to slow things down for the…

As anyone who remembers “The Dating Game” knows, the way the game works is that a young female contestant gets to ask a series of questions to three young male contestants (aka “eligible bachelors”), then chooses the best man based on the answers. She cannot see them, of course. In this charming episode from 1972,…

Matthew Yglesias makes no secret of wanting Swedish style socialism for the United States, and says so. He also chides American progressives for not being more explicit about advocating socialism, and says gumption is required. …you need to have the gumption to take money away from people whose consumption has a low marginal value, and…

Via HotAir, John Avlon of No Labels continues fussing over alleged extremists right and left, this time aiming at Rush Limbaugh and his criticism of the group. But Avlon’s attacks seem off-target.  While I’m not a fan, Rush can hardly be described as “far right” in country where self-described conservatives outnumber self-described liberals 2:1 and his program…

I’m not a credentialed historian, but I have read many, many books about Nazism and Communism over the years. So many that I have lost count. It is numbing to read about mass killing, especially the details. Most of the books I’ve accumulated are in boxes, but here are a few I took off the…

While I like to joke about Al Gore by comparing him to Jerry Falwell and calling him an “evangelist,” consider the eerie connection between Al Gore and Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps: Fred Phelps is a long time Democrat supporter and frequent Democrat candidate for various offices in Kansas. As recently as 1998 Phelps got…

While I might complain about the snow as I did earlier, Coco does not! In fact, she loves the snow, because it makes her favorite tire seem all the more enticing and magical.   As you can see, Coco is in no hurry to bring it to me, and when she does, she insists on…

There is a prison strike going on in Georgia (the American one). Inmates at six major prisons in the state of Georgia have begun a strong yet peaceful protest against inhumane conditions in the facilities in which they live. The protest is unique because it represents a coalition of Black, Brown and White inmates, jumping…

This is the fourth day of arctic weather in the low teens and single digits, and I am getting sick of it. Like most Americans, I am in no mood for a scolding about Global Warming. Battling ice is no fun, and driving is dangerous because the streets that were plowed and look safe actually…

We should be glad we still have the First Amendment right to yodel, because in Austria they have lost it. No, seriously: It seems as though in Austria, the popular yodel is an insult to Muslims. An Austrian court has recently fined a citizen for yodeling while mowing his lawn, according to a report in…

As most readers know, I hate influence. Yet that is an absurd contradiction, one with which I struggle constantly. Avoiding influence is impossible, so I see it as one of those hopelessly unachievable goals — like goodness or perfection. In what is probably a contradictory act of damnable hypocrisy, I will quote a famous person…

An article in today’s Detroit Free Press confirms what many people on the right have been pointing out for years. What we call “the unemployment rate” is statistically misleading, for it includes only the “acute” phase of unemployed workers who are actively looking for work while drawing benefits, while omitting the large — and growing…

Tim Blair learns from an unlikely source that imprisoned Nobel Prize winning dissident Liu Xiaobo not only supports greater political and economic freedom for the Chinese, but also enthusiastically supports our campaigns to liberate Iraq and Afghanistan, and argues in favor of the U.S. interventions in Vietnam and Korea. Xiaobo even bucks international opinion and…

In an article at The Hill discussing Sarah Palin’s electability, I read something a bit unsettling: …there are other names closely associated with the Tea Party movement, of which Palin is a prominent member, who might run: Rep. Mike Pence (R) of Indiana, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R) and former Speaker of the House…

In the course of salting and scraping the sidewalk, I have been throwing road salt from a bucket. No big deal there. Just a plain five gallon bucket. But as Veeshir says, this blog is dedicated to overthinking things, and on the way up the stairs earlier I happened to notice something on the bucket…

I just came across an interesting book at Amazon: Sex Machines: Photographs and Interviews It is about the inventiveness of Americans when it comes to sex. Or to put it it in a somewhat more social context: men designing power tools for women. From the product description: Through astonishing images and the surprisingly touching words…

Via Glenn, Joshua Micah Mackie Packie Paisely Marshall writes perhaps the most ridiculous thing ever rendered in pixels: “Amazing. A year ago, no one took seriously the idea that a federal health care mandate was unconstitutional. And the idea that buying health care coverage does not amount to ‘economic activity’ seems preposterous on its face.…

It has come to my attention that this blog now has an entirely new way to embed hyperlinks. It strikes me as not only lazy, but possibly dishonest, because all I have to do is write a post (presumably on any subject), and the new software will identify certain key words, then automatically suggest links…

Getting this kind of finger is a good thing. The results of numeracy and literacy tests for seven-year-old children can be predicted by measuring the length of their fingers, shows new research. In a study to be published in the British Journal of Psychology, scientists compared the finger lengths of 75 children with their Standardised…