Category: Interesting Tidbits

Happy Halloween, folks!

Here are a few of my favorite October posts over the last 5 years:  How to Make Money Selling Cars is strangely new again; Post Partum Depression is still too common and too rarely treated; seriously, Just Say No to Voter Initiatives; School Fundraisers are a terrible waste of time for students and faculty; I wish I was Special; and Rent Control does the exact opposite of what proponents think it does.

In closing: Nebraska Governor thinks only cute little babies are worth saving from parents who can’t take care of them; banks would rather outright give money to people who don’t need it than lend it to people who do need it; the Government economists can no longer hide the fact that the economy sucks; a voter’s guide straight out of the Bible; finally somebody who is really Pro-Life instead of Anti-Abortion or Anti-Sex; speaking of which, a real pro-life stance admits that expecting mothers are living beings too; and remember to VOTE Tuesday if you haven’t already.  I hope to have an item on the philosophy of voting by then, but you never know.  Have a great weekend!

Congress has taken time out of its busy schedule saving the economy from certain ruin to recommend the pardon of a long dead boxer.

That man, Jack Johnson, was convicted under the Mann Act of transporting an unmarried woman across state lines for “immoral” activities.

This recommendation comes in the same year that Eliot Spitzer was threatened with prosecution under the same law.

In closing: what I hope is the last word on the $700B bailout; that’s not the way I would have chosen to solve our illegal immigrant problem; a man who felt overwhelmed.  Enjoy the debate, since it appears to be back on.

I will be attending BlogWorld this weekend. Specifically, I will be on a panel Saturday called “The Political Blogosphere In Transition.”

Here’s the official description:

The political blogosphere was born after the divisive 2000 presidential election and has matured rapidly in the eight years since. The selection of a new president in 2008 will be a key transition for political bloggers who have been inspired or infuriated by the policies of George W. Bush. How will the “netroots” and the “rightroots” react?

Moderator: Austin Bay

Panelists: Pam Spaulding, Rob Neppell, Bridget Magnus, Roger Simon

Many thanks to Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice for recomending me. I will be representing them as well as myself.

Ok, let me spell this out for you. The new Batman movie is supposed to be great.  The performance of now-late Heath Ledger as the Joker is described as “mad-crazy-blazing brilliant“. Time Magazine says “With little humor to break the tension, The Dark Knight is beyond dark. It’s as black — and teeming and toxic — as the mind of the Joker.” Holy big screen, Batman, this is not — repeat, not — a rehash of the old 60s Batman TV show.

All this being said, I’d like to point out that the movie is rated PG-13.  Whatever made anybody think it was appropriate viewing for kids? Even one of the reviewers said (emphasis mine) “This film is not for children, and I would discourage parents from taking anyone under 12 to see this movie.”  Imagine that.  Maybe — just maybe — that’s why it’s rated PG-13.

But hey, my job isn’t to parent your kids.

In closing:  who needs handcuffs when you have schedule 4 pharmaceuticals that can cause severe reactions; Susie wants to know if you feel safer knowing that there are truckers who should be legally disabled driving big rigs; an Appeals court thinks it’s just fine to lock somebody up just because the President says he’s a bad guy; and The End of White Flight.

The most accurate thing you are likely to read about education this week, courtesy of D-Ed Reckoning.

“Sorry your parents were screw-ups, kid. The penalty is death.” Seriously, a Florida teenager has been removed from an organ transplant list because he’s in the foster system.

I could go on about FISA, but Jill and Yeti did such a nice job.

Fafblog is updated irregularly, but they only post quality stuff, like this run-down of potential Veep candidates.

A couple questions about Senator McCain: is he in fact a natural born United States citizen? And did he bother to divorce wife #1 (you remember, the one who had the temerity to be injured and disfigured while Johnny was being tortured) before marrying wife #2 (the beer baroness)?

It turns out there is a magic pill to improve your health. And the good news is it’s cheap! The bad news is it’s called “exercise”.

A pilot points out to the TSA that in fact, the knife in his carry-on bag was given to him on the airplane. TSA supervisor is unamused.

Phuck Phil. Gramm that is. And his little Wendy too. Remember, this is the guy that McCain looks to for economic advice. Well, I guess he’s an expert — he broke it!

mmCoffee. You know, you can cook with it too?

And ModDoctor nailed this weeks ago! The doctor in Vegas who apparently infected an unknown number of patients with hepatitis has been inadequately cleaning the scopes he puts up people’s bums since at least 1989. This case just got a lot messier.

Have a great weekend.

Soon after the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 was passed, I received a notice in the mail from the IRS to let me know this had happened and was great news and I was likely to get a check.

Today I received a notice in the mail from the IRS to let me know that under the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, I was entitled to a check, and it should arrive next week.

Next week — according to this notice in the mail from the IRS — I should receive a check in the mail from the IRS under the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008.

I am unsure how much this check will “stimulate” my personal economic outlook, but the money spent on paper, printing, and postage will probably have a greater effect on the economy than whatever I should do with the expected check. The check that the IRS will send me in the mail.  Under the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008.

In closing:  the real unemployment rate; how is it we can convict 297 illegal immigrants who worked at one plant and not come up with a single charge against the employer?; the Secret History of Star Wars; the real roots of the food crisis; Good Post on Bad Money; and finally students so busy the school has to add a 20 minute “lunch period”?  How about telling these kids that no, you can’t have 6 academic classes, you have to take a lunch period!  Attention Administrators:  YOU are the GROWN-UPS.  Act like it!

Sometimes I feel like the only sane person in the world.

I honestly thought I’d spend today talking about the McCain health plan. But frankly, lots of people have already said deeper things about it than I would have. Hey, it might have worked 5 or 10 years ago.

Instead, I offer two observations. First, breastfeeding of infants is at a multi-decade high. That’s a good thing! But is it because today’s savvy moms are trying to do the healthiest thing for their babies, or is it because it’s cheaper than formula?

Second, Hillary Clinton has had her supermarket-scanner tank-riding moment. Many thanks to State of the Day and AmericaBlog for pointing us to this hilarious (Hillarious?) video of our former First Lady, who went to a gas station for the first time in 2 decades, trying to get a cup of coffee. Bonus points? When she stops near the end to read the instructions printed prominently on the machine itself.

It happens.

It’s why there’s a different flu vaccine each year.

It’s how corn came to exist.

It’s why antibiotic resistant bacteria exist.

It’s how these little lizards came to be quite different little lizards in roughly 35 years.

It’s why syphilis no longer has symptoms including “Boils that stood out like Acorns, from whence issued such filthy stinking Matter, that whosoever came within the Scent, believed himself infected. The Colour of these was of a dark Green and the very Aspect as shocking as the pain itself, which yet was as if the Sick had laid upon a fire.” I think the author of the news item put it well: “First, it contrasts markedly with modern experiences with the disease…. Second, it is reasonable to suppose that a sufferer of [these] symptoms… would be unlikely to get a lot of dates.”

How and why evolution happens? Yes that’s a theory. But to ignore evolution altogether is to ignore a law of nature.

In closing: dying for lack of insurance; the recession diet as endorsed by TheStreet.com (way to get to that hard hitting economics and market news there, Jim Cramer must be sooooo proud); OPEC tells the truth, that high oil prices are at least partly because of the weak dollar (which is in turn because of certain Bush Administration policies); young voters more likely to be Democrats; it turns out that of the 53 teenage girls taken from the FDLS compound, 31 were moms or moms-to-be (I think that’s grounds enough to keep the 53 girls away from that place permanently); it turns out that all that hands-on math teaching with “manipulatives” and lots of word problems may be making it harder to learn math; “fat but fit” turns out to be largely untrue after all; and renovated robot rides again.

Did you know that people from the East and people from the West gauge visual cues of emotion differently? A new study seems to show that Asians tend to take the emotions of a group into account when determining the emotions of an individual in the group.

Spring has arrived in Japan, which means it’s Hanami — cherry blossom viewing — season! Of course, that means it’s also time for a variety of ahem other spring festivals. Nice weather for a bike ride.

Japan is, of course, on the earth’s “ring of fire“. Did you know that Mt. Fuji is a volcano? Like California, they are subject to earthquakes. Here’s an interview with an award-winning Japanese-American seismologist whose California home is built on a fault — and says that “But after [basic preparation and disaster supplies], I don’t think about it anymore.”

In a bygone age, the Kimono was a typical garment. Perhaps it did not occur to you that they don’t have pockets! So where was a gentleman to keep his pipe, his “pocket” change, his noontime medication? Why, in a container hooked to his belt strung to an elegant little sculpture called a netsuke (think of the u as being silent).

In closing: a shocking concept, living within your means; there’s no excuse for an error-ridden terror watchlist; the middle way on regulation vs deregulation; explaining the credit crisis so even a child can should understand it; why are we getting on the case of people for supporting a wacky black preacher without denouncing some of our wacky white preachers?; the 10th largest economy in the world won’t promise to comply with Real ID; Duhpartment of Research admits that while kids who eat healthy diets do better in school, kids who aren’t poor or who don’t have undereducated parents tend to eat healthier diets; and finally, states start to ask how exactly somebody can be mature enough to go to war and not mature enough to buy a beer when he/she gets back from the battle.

There is a local event I would like to tell you about.