You would think a national "Gun Appreciation Day" would go off without a hitch and no one would get shot, right? Wrong.
There were three different shootings at different rallies that took place all across the country today.…
Atlantic Wire
1.19.2013
Seems a little embarrassing
Big Brother: Watching closer every day
Despite their fixation on the problem of deceit, government agencies aren’t interested in funding anything so abstract as basic research. “They want to buy hardware,” Honts says. But without an understanding of the mechanics of lying, it seems that any attempt to build a lie-detecting device is doomed to fail. “It’s like trying to build an atomic bomb without knowing the theory of the atom,” Honts says.
Wired
Tell me it's not all part of the movie deal
 | The Associated Press (@AP) |
That didn't take long: Paramount to produce biopic about @lancearmstrong: apne.ws/13P2xyR -JM | |
(Awwww, am I'm being a little cynical this morning?)
1.18.2013
Go west young bug
The severe flu that spread across the U.S. has arrived in California and is causing illnesses and hospitalizations in much of the state…
LATimes
LOL: So the next time you apply for a passport…
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will remove airport body scanners that privacy advocates likened to strip searches after OSI Systems Inc. (OSIS) couldn’t write software to make passenger images less revealing.…
OSI Systems is “pleased to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement with the TSA” that will involve moving the machines to other government agencies, Chief Executive Officer Deepak Chopra said in a statement.
Business Week
Emphasis our own.
Well, maybe they'll give them to the IRS.
Celebrating Arnold's return to the silver screen…
…the Christian Science Monitor nominates Schwarzenegger's cheesiest movie quotes.
So then, my Carhartt jeans…
“It doesn’t matter where the clothes come from, if you wash them with Tide, they do have almost this prestige wash to them"…New York Magazine, in an article on a thriving black market in Tide detergent.
(H/T Chocolate Chip Mint.)
Wait till Homeland Security hears about this
Midlothian council…bosses are staging a free pole-dancing class in a library in an attempt to persuade more people to borrow books.
Midlothian council believes it is the first local authority in Scotland to hold such an event. It will run the session at Mayfield library in Dalkeith on 2 February, which is Love Your Library Day.
Oh. Scotland. Well.
The Guardian
1.17.2013
On old-fashioned words
Last, there are the words that are in between the marginally quick ("grand") and the dead ("slugabed"); words that are so frumpy and adorned with tatting that they scream out "Grandma!"
Some examples: poppycock, balderdash, hobbledehoy, breeches. I think of these as novelty words, serving as linguistic party favors for special occasions.
Christian Science Monitor
Mohammed Ali is 71
Sitting in his Michigan farmhouse, Ali smiled as he watched his younger self dancing around the ring, shouting “I’m the king of the world!” “But wasn’t I pretty?
Ouch, Boeing
The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded Boeing's 787 Dreamliner fleet after several jets experienced technical malfunctions.(Although…
United Airlines is currently the only U.S. airline operating the 787, with six airplanes in service.)
TPM
Dems duck
PRESIDENT OBAMA has refused to tell Congress or the American people why he believes the Constitution gives, or fails to deny, him the authority to secretly target and kill American citizens who he suspects are involved in terrorist activities overseas. So far he has killed three that we know of.
New York Times
Giving new meaning to the term "underwater house"
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Inspectors taking the first-ever inventory of flood control systems overseen by the federal government have found hundreds of structures at risk of failing and endangering people and property in 37 states.
AP
No more generic weather for us
Remember "Snowmageddon," the East Coast blizzard of 2010? Federal forecasters aren't getting that creative yet, but The Weather Channel this winter has formalized naming winter storms like hurricanes, typhoons and tropical storms.
"When they get named, they're instantly raised in the public consciousness. People just pay more attention to storms when they get a name," explained Bryan Norcross, a content director for The Weather Channel who helped develop the naming system.
APHow about selling naming rights? A blizzard named Bank of America? Or Ski At Joes?
1.16.2013
White House blows some serious smoke on gun control (and not much else)
Obama today released a list of so-called executive actions intended to combat gun violence, mostly bureaucratic gibberish, including this gem:
"Nominate an ATF Director."
Just go read this.
"Nominate an ATF Director."
Just go read this.
1.15.2013
I say it's broccoli
 | Salon.com (@Salon) |
National Book Award changes should help "shake off its reputation for focusing exclusively on spinachy esoterica" slnm.us/m0tDT3h | |
1.14.2013
What could possibly go wrong?
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai announced Monday that the United States would give Afghanistan its own fleet of aerial surveillance drones…
File under: Mysterious Ways
Weird news, everybody! Pubic lice are becoming an endangered species!
Salon
And there's an app!
Definitely added to our Work Avoidance List is the website, Fontly, dedicated to capturing fonts in the wild.
1.13.2013
Enlightenment
Here's a Google search that turned up on my stats page:
Not very.
"How long is 12 weeks?"
Not very.
This whole thing is really getting out of control
At the Miss America pageant, Miss New York Mallory Hytes Hagan, who went on to win the competition, was asked by judge Sam Champion about the NRA’s proposal to arm teachers in the wake of the Newtown school shootings. She responded that she opposes that proposition.…
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