Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt

The Washington Post reports:

November 2, 1922. No, really! HERE's the original source of the article, from the archives of NOAA.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Accounting

HERE'S an article that questions whether PBS lobbying (directly or by encouraging listeners) for continued funding is prohibited either by a statute that bans using federal money to lobby for more federal money, or by the Internal Revenue Code's prohibition of political action by 501(c)(3) organizations.

Inevitably, the maddeningly unctuous Public Broadcasting nobility patiently explains that their accounting is very, very strict and sophisticated, and no federal funds are EVER spent on lobbying -- only private donations.

This is a common argument, nevertheless ridiculous for being so common. If I give my son a bus pass so he doesn't have to pay his own money to commute to work, and he then spends some of "his own" money on hookers and crack, I'm pretty confident that I'm subsidizing drugs and prostitutes.

I remember years ago attending a function at the Smithsonian Institution, and noting the presence of an open bar. My acquaintance -- a very minor Smithsonian official -- explained that no federal funds were used to buy the booze (which would have been contrary to law), but instead it was purchased only with private donations. The little tooth-picked hot dogs, on the other hand, were federally funded.

We Only Report the News, and We Don't Write the Headlines

Police Seize Four-Foot Penis

Today in Total Bullshit

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has said that the worst of the credit crunch may have passed.

Made With Free-Range Shepherds

Some things are just plain right, and some just clearly wrong.

Krispy Kreme doughnuts: Wrong. A waste of time and calories.
Dunkin' Donuts: Right. Recommended by doctors 3 to 1.

On pizza, all wrong: anchovies, eggplant, pineapple. Bacon would be wrong, except bacon is always right.

Our cousins across the pond have their own icons, and their own beliefs. The Daily Telegraph reports:

After a day spent drinking, Michael Garvin cooked his brother John the traditional English dish for dinner, expecting a grateful response.

John, however, voiced his disquiet that the pie was not topped with a layer of sliced tomatoes.

His brother, a chef, claimed a layer of tomatoes was not the appropriate way to finish off a shepherd’s pie, and responded by hitting him over the head with a shovel.

As the argument got out of control, John threatened to petrol bomb his brother’s flat and was arrested.

Thank God that the Brits still produce strong, rough men willing to stand up for what's right.

Mirabile Dictu!

Could it be? Do you suppose! The Holy Koran preserved by the hand of Allah from the death missiles of the Zionist Pigs?!!?

Not so much.

True Dat

Prior to engaging in divorce, most white people train for it by engaging in a series of long term relationships that end very poorly. At some point, you will likely encounter a white person who is in the middle of a difficult breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend.

The suffering of heartbreak is universal, but it is important to be aware that white people thrive during these trying times. If you play your cards right, you can parlay these moments into future favors and valuable trust.

The majority of white person art is created after a difficult breakup; films, indie music, and poetry are all kicked into high production during the end of a relationship. This helps train white people to prepare for the pain that is coming.

Once breakup proceedings have been initiated, a white person is immediately thrust into the center of attention in their circle of friends. During this time, they are permitted to talk at great lengths about themselves, listen to The Smiths, and get free dinners from friends who think “they shouldn’t be alone right now.”

More at Stuff White People Like.

H/T to the Hired Hand, the whitest guy we know.

UPDATE: Had to include a seminal passage from a deeper post:

To explain this love [white people have] for Public Radio, one only needs to summarize several previous posts on this website. Let’s use my friend Craig as an example. Craig has a high-paying 9 to 5 so he feels guilty about all the problems in the world. To make himself feel better he likes being socially aware of things Post #18. However he spends most of his time indulging in the arts and going out for dinner so he has little time to devote to this. He found solace in The Daily Show Post#35, however he decided that life would be better if he did not have a TV post #28. Craig found an adequate replacement in Public Radio.

-HH

What's So Great About Unity?

So asks Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy (warning - original post may contain shameless law professor self-promotion):

One of Barack Obama's major campaign themes is the promise that he will "unite" America. Obama is an incredibly skillfull campaigner, so I must assume that he wouldn't be pushing this trope unless there were good reason to believe that it works. Of course, Obama is far from the only politician to promise unity. Remember when George W. Bush promised that he would be a "uniter, not a divider"? That was a fairly successful campaign theme too.

This emphasis on unity for its own sake seems misplaced. After all, unity is really valuable only if we are united in doing the right thing. Being united in doing the wrong thing is surely worse than being divided, if only because division reduces the likelihood of the harmful policies being enacted. And even if the policies proposed by the would-be "uniter" really are beneficial, it's not clear why broad unity in support of them is preferable to just having enough votes to get them passed.

[snip]

Despite its vacuousness, unity rhetoric seems to be popular. Popular enough that both conservative and liberal politicians routinely resort to it. Popular enough that a brilliant candidate like Obama has made it a centerpiece of his campaign. Popular enough that nationalists, socialists, fascists, and communists have all made effective use of it. Remember "One People, One Fuehrer, One Reich"? No, I am not saying that Obama (or Bush) is like the Nazis and Communists. Far from it. However, the Nazi and communist examples do dramatically illustrate how unity doesn't have any intrinsic value. The achievement of national unity made these regimes even worse than they would have been otherwise, not better.

Full post HERE.

Just So

"It's really a shame, because if you're a woman, then there's nothing you can change about yourself to do better."

Surprised?

Polls be damned. We're going to have to start paying attention to Amazon.com's "What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing Items Like This?" feature. For any item you're presently viewing, it tells you what other people actually ended up buying. Mostly it reveals (duh!) that folks bought the thing you're looking at. What's more interesting is to look at what was purchased by those who didn't.

If you look at this edition of Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables," for example, you'll learn that while 90% bought it, and most of the rest decided to take either a different edition or the sound track from the musical, fully 3% instead bought "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Do we suppose they're both on some sort of "reluctant heroes" reading list?

(Everyone who looked at "Harry Potter," by the way, bought, well, Harry Potter.)

It's a game any number can play, and it's fun for the whole family. But, since you asked, our own favorite is al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." Mostly these lookers bought one or another product bearing the al Gore fabular trade mark. But fully two-thirds of those who didn't instead found what they were looking for in "The Secret," a movie (heretofore unknown to us), described thusly:

The Secret is a feature length movie presentation which reveals The Great Secret of the universe. It has been passed throughout the ages, traveling through centuries... This is The Secret to everything - the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted. All the resources you will ever need to understand and live The Secret. The world's leading scientists, authors, and philosophers will reveal The Secret that utterly transformed the lives of every person who ever knew it... Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein.

Not only that, it comes with a (how did we know?) can't-miss endorsement: As seen on Oprah and Larry King.

Al's clearly found his milieu.