by Terry Hargrove I own the most aggravating, and therefore effective, alarm clock ever invented. It moves around the bedroom while I sleep, then shrieks like a jet engine every morning at 4:55. My wife has thrown it away three times, but it always crawls out of the dumpster and makes it way back to […]
Archive | February, 2010
Time to change Ronald Reagan's 'trust, but verify' to 'verify, but trust'?
Nuclear Disarmament and Ronald Reagan: ‘Trust, But Verify’
To hawks, verification is another hammer with which to bludgeon disarmament.
Meet my next smartphone – the Palm Pre Plus
It’s time for a new phone. After repeated drops on concrete and tile floors, my Palm Treo is starting to act up a bit. I haven’t been able to surf the web in a reasonable fashion since Palm and IBM had a falling out over the Java program the Treo needs to run Opera Mini. […]
Another foul nest of anonymice in a Times story
The New York Times parked a travesty of a story on its Web site today reporting that “the Iranians moved roughly 4,300 pounds of low-enriched uranium out of deep underground storage” to a small, above-ground plant, leaving it vulnerable to attack, sabotage or some other suitable, destructive fate. Interesting, but … The story has no […]
Free Willy?
The news that an orca has killed a trainer at Sea World comes as a shock, but not really as a surprise. As has been widely reported, the killer whale, named Tilikum, grabbed his trainer, Dawn Brancheau, by her hair and pulled her under water, shaking her. The trainer apparently died of “multiple traumatic injuries,” […]
The first day of the rest of my life
I walked into the classroom hopped up on caffeine and adrenaline. I’d gotten to the room early—a drab box on the second floor of of our largest academic building—with the intent of staking out my territory well in advance of the freshmen, but a few of them had already beaten me. Looks like I wasn’t […]
Pole-dancing (and other proposed Olympic events)
The move is afoot to add pole-dancing to the Olympics. No, I’m not making that up, and no, I’m not talking about what happens every Saturday night in clubs all over Warsaw. If you’ve suffered through “athletic” competitions like synchronized swimming (Busby Berkeley choreography in water), curling (there’s a pregnant woman on the Canadian team) […]
Lincoln today: The people don't count any more?
On November 19, 1863, as President Lincoln stood to deliver the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he could not have foreseen how the nation he envisioned as the home of “a new birth of freedom” could become an intolerable refutation of much of what he said that sad day. He could […]
Toyota is the Tiger Woods of the car business (but one observer thinks there's hope)
In case you missed it, Toyota seems to have developed a little public relations problem. And, like most PR issues, this one ultimately has very little to do with PR. Instead, the company, which was once famed for quality, seems to have fallen into one of the most common traps in the book – it […]
A tale of two cities: Baghdad and Kabul
by Michael Brenner Operation New Dawn! How disarming it would be were this a sign that a bit of dry wit had penetrated the mental fastness that is the American defense establishment. Alas, the truth is that the Pentagon’s public relations machine is still grinding away. This administration’s dedication to continuing the tradition of dishonest […]
Bode Miller, Lindsey Jacobellis, and an Olympic-sized lesson on what to do when opportunity knocks
Complete this sentence: “When opportunity knocks, ___________________________.” I was pretty hard on Bode Miller after his no-show in Torino four years ago, about as hard as I’ve ever been on anyone who wasn’t in a position of political authority. Looking back, I don’t regret a word of it. He established himself as the archetype of […]
Even if states balance budgets, services cuts, high taxes, fees likely to stay
For the first time in many years, the state of New York owes me a tax refund — all of $13. But our governor, David Paterson, doesn’t want to give it to me — at least not right away. (And he wants to be re-elected?) I’m not alone. Paterson wants to hang on to about […]
S&R Honors
Click here to learn more about past honorees...- Magic Hat vs. West Sixth brewhaha: will MH win the battle that costs them the war?
- WordsDay: Postmodernist Xerism at it most discontentedly hopeful…
- How to stop journalists: Say they might be criminals
- Denver FOX News affiliate caught making shit up
- IRS/Tea Party controversy: progressive groups “targeted,” too, and corporate media once again refuses to tell Americans the whole truth
- Mystery Unraveled: How a white, moderate, married, churchgoing, middle-class, middle-aged woman could vote for Obama
- An open letter to Burt Rutan, regarding his WSJ commentary on human-caused climate disruption
- Meet the men of Match.com: Really, guys, are you serious?
- Climate scientists still besieged
- Pelosi on Bush: “He’s not worth impeaching”
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wufnik: .Agreed on a lot of this--both Jagger/Richard and …
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Debbie: Wow! So only homely hags are on online dating sit…
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Miami Feels Like Home: Hi Keen, It was very interesting to read your c…
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Hansel de Sousa: We're getting carried away by our imagination. A…
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Samuel Smith: The Justice Dept. is playing a dangerous game. I'm…
