2.02.2013

Never mind the rodent and all that talk about early spring

Icy Lady by Ted Compton
Icy Lady, a photo by Ted Compton on Flickr.
We here in New England, never slaves to optimism, celebrate winter with ice sculpture.

Best news we've heard all day

Yahoo! News (@YahooNews)
Furry, rodent-like weather consultant Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow. Spring is near: yhoo.it/Xx0N8A


2.01.2013

Happy birthday, Grand Central Station

Last year, in an article about its lesser cousin, Penn Station, New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman wrote of Grand Central Terminal: "To pass through Grand Central Terminal, one of New York’s exalted public spaces, is an ennobling experience, a gift."
With pictures, at Atlantic Wire

How does he drive?

Washington Post blogger takes both sides on wrong side.

Lists of books about football…

…are floating around the datastream this week, in honor of the Super Bowl.

So here's ours:

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer

Just don't watch

Watching the Senate Armed Services Committee interact Thursday with former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel—President Obama’s candidate to be secretary of defense—was a profoundly depressing experience.

Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/02/01/hagels-hearing-profoundly-depressing/#ixzz2Jeq0dACH

1.31.2013

Dirty rotten liberals trying to trick us into being happy, dour conservative reports


Establishing a gross domestic happiness index would have the government define “happiness” for all of us as a way to empower the looming technocracy that I am convinced the Political Left wishes to establish–rule by experts to keep most of us dependent, in which “the experts” would tell us what makes society happy, and impose policies to make it so. 

National Review
Then they will steal our brains for soup.

Or maybe if they just got a wardrobe update…

Moviegoers have likely noticed that there is a plague upon superheroes: Once they used to laugh, and crack wise, and save the world with aplomb and derring-do, but now they have all be taken ill by psychological realism, a condition that bestows upon them deep-seated daddy issues, fallibility, and a need to lurk in the shadows.
Salon
If you had a plomb could you put it in a pie?

Out of sight, out of mind

With the passing of the last of the Andrews Sisters, we thought it would be nice to link to one of their songs on YouTube but the six we visited were all being blocked by a recording company.
Progressive Review

January flees in disarray

Freaky, freaky weather. It was 57° this morning, now it's 40 and headed toward 30 by this evening. Snow is disappearing faster than the polar ice cap. And the wind is huge. Not as bad as what they've had down south, but still it took my most aerodynamic hat (the Derby) to make it to the grocery store and back un-blown off.

But of course, February arrives.

Glitch, right


WASHINGTON — Some families could get priced out of health insurance due to what's being called a glitch in President Barack Obama's overhaul law.… 
The Obama administration says its hands were tied… 
Huffington Post

1.30.2013

My kinda town

NEW ORLEANS — Other cities might be trudging through cabbage season at this point in winter, but New Orleans is eating cake. From Twelfth Night to Mardi Gras, which is Feb. 12 this year, daily consumption of king cake — a round of sweet dough glazed with purple, gold and green sugar — is more or less compulsory.
New York Times

Would that be like a little pregnant?

The United States economy unexpectedly reversed course in the final quarter of 2012 and contracted at a 0.1 percent rate, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, its worst performance since the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2009.… 
“I’m a little surprised,” said Michael Feroli, chief United States economist at JPMorgan.

New York Times

Terrific photos from Detroit

Excellent photo essay in Wired.

1.28.2013

And speaking of information overload…


During her tenure at Fox News, Sarah Palin was paid an average of about $15.85 per word, according to an analysis by Smart Politics. Palin, who was a Fox News contributor for three years before parting ways with the network on Friday, was paid a reported $1 million per year.
Salon

Going out in style


A Pennsylvania man with a life-long passion for fast food got a whopper of a funeral when his procession made one last visit to a drive-thru Burger King.
Marking 88-year-old David S. Kime Jr.'s love of the popular restaurant chain, family and friends picked up 40 Whopper Jr. burgers on the way to the cemetery - including one they buried with him.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269074/Drive-funeral-Tearful-daughter-gets-father-Burger-King-Whopper-Jr.html#ixzz2JIY19hPW 


But 88 and a Purple Heart vet from WWII? The guy deserved a double.

Burn baby burn

 Daily Mail, UK- This incredible picture from space shows how the U.S. oil industry has boomed to such an extent that a gas field now burns as brightly as a major city.
(H/T UNDERNEWS)
Also hydrocarbon emissions, greenhouse gases, but who's counting?

File under: Shopping tips

I try to spend less than $20 on a trip to the grocery store because then I can play historical trivia games with the bill. Today, for example, was $19.03. Which turns out to be the very year Thomas Edison electrocuted a circus elephant named Topsy. I'm not kidding. You can look it up.

That's sick, right. I know. Demented.

But I am easily amused.

(And you didn't know about that Thomas Edison thing, did you?)

1.27.2013

Great stuff

LIFE (@LIFE)
Margaret Bourke-White was one of a kind — here, we look back at her breathtaking legacy for LIFE magazine | ti.me/LbIrId


But…

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is a big football fan with two daughters, but if he had a son, he says he'd ''have to think long and hard'' before letting him play because of the physical toll the game takes.
Yahoo Sports
…apparently he thinks it's perfectly okay for his daughters to serve in frontline combat units.

Oh, wait. That would never happen would it? Of course not.

(Sometimes people should just shut up.)

Who could resist?



"Paperboy" is great trash, and as Pauline Kael told us, the movies are so seldom great art that if we can't appreciate great trash, we might as well not go at all.

Roger Ebert



Party's over

GQ has unveiled their picks for the 100 hottest women of the 21st century

21st century, we hardly knew ye.

Who knew?


Jan. 27 is National Chocolate Cake Day. 
W00t!