...I was going to clean up my bedroom today but then I thought, hey, it's almost Halloween, isn't it, so that means things are supposed to look a little spooky, doesn't it, so I decided to wait.
10.07.2009
So the plan was...
"Strict constructionist" that he is...
Justice Antonin Scalia...insisted the First Amendment did not allow the government to limit speech and expression unless it involved sex or obscenity.
link: Court mulls legality of a 'Human Sacrifice Channel' - San Jose Mercury News
Say what?
Oh, Bunky, I really, really, really hope this is true
In an effort to rid the Good Book of "liberal bias," [Conservapedia] has set up the Conservative Bible Project, which aims to rewrite the Bible from a modern, conservative perspective.
link: Conservative group aims to delete ‘liberal bias’ from Bible | Raw Story
10.06.2009
Embarassing confession
Newsweek Video | Return to Oz: The Munchkins 70 Years Later
When I was in the fourth grade, I discovered a copy of "The Wizard of Oz" in the neighborhood library. I was spellbound. It was the first book I ever read, and it was the one thing that turned me on to a life of reading and writing. Years later, I found out that it was also this amazing movie.
Embarrassing confession: When I was in college, I was cast as one of the Lollipop Kids (even though I was six feet tall.) I think there might have been other resemblances.
Anyway, it was magical stuff. And that movie endures, 70 years later. Priceless.
-Paul Knue
10.05.2009
"Obama loses!"
So what did we learn from this moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.
link: Op-Ed Columnist - The Politics of Spite - NYTimes.com
10.03.2009
Improbable Research announces 2009 Ig Nobel prizes
PEACE PRIZE: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.
...and more, here.
10.02.2009
Not gonna happen
Chicago was eliminated in the first round of the voting for the 2016 Summer Olympics. For Chicago, it wasn't that close: The first-round vote totals showed Madrid with 28, Rio 26, Tokyo 22, and Chicago 18. In the second round, it was Rio 46, Madrid 29, and Tokyo 20, and in the last round, it was Rio 66 and Madrid 32.
link: Photos: Olympic dream over - chicagotribune.com
Strange maps
There are over 13,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the US, or about 1 for every 23,000 Americans. But even market penetration this advanced doesn’t mean that McDonald’s is everywhere. Somewhere in South Dakota is the McFarthest Spot, the place in the US geographically most removed from the nearest McD’s. If you started out from this location, a few miles north of State Highway 20 (which runs latitudinally between Highways 73 in the west and 65 in the east), you’d have to drive 145 miles to get your Big Mac (if you could fly, however, it’d be only 107 miles).
link: 413 – The McFarthest Place: 145 Mi to the Nearest Big Mac « Strange Maps
So the next time they tell you things have turned around, yippee...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. employers cut a deeper-than-expected 263,000 jobs in September, lifting the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent, according to a government report on Friday that fueled fears the weak labor market could undermine recovery from a prolonged recession.
The Labor Department said the unemployment rate was the highest since June 1983 and payrolls had now dropped for 21 consecutive months.
link: U.S. Sept non-farm payrolls fall, jobless rate up - Yahoo! News
But hey, Bunky, check this out:
"The worst of the labor market deterioration is over. Despite this month's bigger decline, the trajectory of job losses is still positive as the trend rate has slowed as economic activity has begun to recover," said Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics in Danville, California.
Got it? The trajectory of job losses is still positive as the trend rate has slowed. WTF? And this Wood guy has a job?
10.01.2009
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