As a Tufts alumni and fan of a cappella, I was eager to see The Sing Off and I wasn't disappointed. But I didn't think it was necessary for the host to mention several times that the competitors were singing without instruments. Even if I didn't know what a cappella meant, I would have figured that out within the first … Read More
Asheville Seeks To Prevent Atheist From Serving On City Council
Here I was thinking Asheville was one of the more progressive little big towns of North Carolina, but nope. Opponents of a man named Cecil Bothwell are seizing on an obscure law to argue he should not be seated as a City Council member today. The North Carolina Constitution, according to this newspaper report, states that a peson is not … Read More
I’ll Weigh In on This
And by "this", I mean this. It seems to me that if your neighbors are accusing you of being "white trash", then spraying painting the side of your house with Hitler references tends to re-enforce their point, not yours. Just sayin'.
Why I Hate These Magazines
….because they're recycled crap. I mean, how much times care you write about great abs and great sex and not repeat yourself? And women's magazines (Cosmo, etc.) are worse
Health Insurers Bribe Facebook Users
This is a little complicated to explain, but bear with me. On Facebook, there are games you can play that require money to advance. They are simulation games — like running your own farm, or rollercoaster theme park, or mafia crime family, or something like that. Of course, these games doesn't involve real money, but fake money — usually given names like … Read More
More Fox Flubs
This still hasn't been fixed as I write this, so if you click, you still might catch it. Anyway, read this poll from the Fox News website, and see if it makes sense to you: They've got their biased leading answers backwards, no?
Oh Please Oh Please Oh Please Oh Please
Sarah Palin weighed in on climate change this week in a painfully bland op-ed in the Washington Post. (No, of course she didn't actually write it — Bill Kristol, I'm guessing, did). It was largely a rehash of one of her Facebook posts on the subject, where words like "science" and "experts" were put in scare quotes. On Laura Ingraham’s radio … Read More
Stimulus Spending In Forsyth County
I don't want to create problems for anyone, but $221,000 seems like an awfully big chunk of stimulus money to go to a psychiatrist's office (Christopher Spaulding PSY.D). [Source] Recovery.gov states that the purpose of the loan was: TO ASSIST SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS BY PROVIDING LONG TERM FINANCING THROUGH THE SALE OF DEBENTURES TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR and also says … Read More
Obama In Norway
It is a little awkward that Obama is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize just weeks after announcing that he is sending more troops into Afghanistan. To his credit, he didn't shy away from addressing this elephant in the room when he received the Prize in Norway today: And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy … Read More
Our National Discourse
You know the state of political journalism is in sorry shape when you read things like this: This morning, Gore appeared on MSNBC, where Andrea Mitchell read from Sarah Palin's Facebook page to ask the former vice president questions about climate change. I'm getting a lot of use out of this graphic:
House GOP Strikes A Blow In The Fictional War
The War on Christmas, as you probably know, is a ginned-up war against those who show their hate for Christmas by banning the word "Christmas". Of course, nobody in reality bans the word Christmas, although some businesses like to acknowledge other holidays during the, you know, holiday season. Still, to some on the right, even the acknowledgement of other holidays and … Read More
Republican Sex Scandal of the Week: Hypocrisy Alert
Republican Missouri State Senator Rod Jetton fired a state lawmaker from his committee chairmanship in 2007 because the lawmaker had changed a bill in order to end a state ban on gay sex. You can read Jetton's defense of his actions from a 2007 editorial here. In it, he boasts "I have fought attempts by liberals to repeal the gay sex … Read More