I’ll Never Remember All That In An Argument
A very good 10 minute video on the history of the commerce clause and how it’s the source of all our present federal governmental joy:
Curtsy: RC2.
Categories: History
Lead Paint
Those new lead paint laws meant that the cost of painting our house has gone up by $2,000. Which is, worst-case scenario (original quoted price; might have been less), increasing the cost by a third.
Which means most people simply won’t bother repainting until the paint chips off and gets eaten by local children. Because, [...]
Categories: Politics
Poor Old Hitch
Vanity Fair – Christopher Hitchens: Topic of Cancer One fine June day, the author is launching his best-selling memoir, Hitch-22. The next, he’s throwing up backstage at The Daily Show, in a brief bout of denial, before entering the unfamiliar country—with its egalitarian spirit, martial metaphors, and hard bargains of people who have cancer.
Say what you [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
Even the Infographic is Unreadable
Something Interesting Is Going On In the Home Remodeling Business
We’ve been talking to these dudes, right, for redoing the house we just bought (kitchen, bathrooms, all unfortunately but lovingly done in the 90s). And the topic has come up of lead paint. One guy, a nice guy, quick to laugh, just became very quietly angry, tried to shrug it off, then said it was [...]
Categories: Wildcard
A Story Sweet and Sad and Adorably Good
Telegraph – Wayward Alzheimer’s patients foiled by fake bus stop A German nursing home has come up with a novel idea to stop Alzheimer’s patients from wandering off: a phantom bus stop.
“It sounds funny,” said Old Lions Chairman Franz-Josef Goebel, “but it helps. Our members are 84 years-old on average. Their short-term memory hardly [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
I Guess Jamie Oliver Isn’t a Tory
I saw that kerfuffle play out on Twitter and I must say, I got the impression that if he was, he’d be hailed as visionary by the new government. It seemed like that kind of snipe.
The Times – Janice Turner: It was a supersize gaffe to diss Jamie, minister
About that column: I concur. Paywall!
Categories: Food
Poor Old Hitchens
Announced he has throat cancer today and has to cut short his book tour to have chemo on his esophagus. But anyway, the news had a link to this review of his memoirs* (which he was on tour promoting), leading with:
In 1973, at the age of 24, Christopher Hitchens was called to Athens, [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
Out to Fix the Disease of Being Female
This right here makes this new Times site worthwhile. You can register for free! For freee!
The Times – What do women want? Not a sex drug, thanks, by Janice Turner
Two quotes:
Who needs these drugs, anyway? Is a woman who doesn’t want sex actually suffering from a medical condition? Unlike a man, the problem [...]
Categories: Science and Nature
While Aussies Have Been On the Hunter Valley Wine
They had to do something with all that lager…
Telegraph – ‘Drunk’ parrots baffle vets as they fall out of trees in Australia
Update: “The sad toll on the innocents,” hahaha.
Categories: Science and Nature
Childhood Obesity Is All The Sun’s Fault
Telegraph – Parents wrongly believe that abduction is a greater threat to children than inactivity and obesity Parents wrongly believe that abduction is a greater threat to children than inactvity and obesity according to a survey published on Tuesday.
RC2 once had a line about only tackling crime will solve the childhood obesity issue, but it would [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
Providing Healthcare for ALL Americans By Filing 1099s At the Apple Store
The country’s in the very best of hands:
CNN Money – Health care law’s massive, hidden tax change
“HIDDEN,” “MASSIVE.”
Section 9006 of the health care bill — just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document — mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract [...]
Categories: Business & Media
Seattle In the News: Kleenex Edition
Seattle Times – Local boy with cancer turns into a superhero for a day
Thursday was shaping up to be just another school day for 13-year-old Erik Martin, but then something extraordinary happened: Spider-Man called. Spider-Man happens to be one of the few people who knows that Erik, too, has a [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
Giving Thanks For My Medicine Cabinet
Do you all remember a couple years ago when I was home when my grandmother was passing and I got a really awful case of poison ivy? I got some topical cream from the doctor, but by the time I got to see her it had almost finished cycling through the awfulness.
Of course I never [...]
Categories: Wildcard
Disposable Sleeves
The Sunday Times – Religious tolerance has put a fatwa on our moral nerve, by Minette Marrin
So, a lady nurse was told to stop wearing her crucifix for ‘ealth ‘n safety. No idea why suddenly it’s considered unclean to wear a cross, but it was. She said no way she’s been wearing it for 30 [...]
Categories: People and Current Events
