A totally different era...

A 1968 exchange between Gore Vidal and William Buckley bartering "crypto-nazi" for "pornographer." Makes me wonder if there's any hope for a little more Jerry Springer in modern politics. (catfight documented here, lasted until 2003).

Bizarro World

In what universe is the following okay? (from The Ethicist column)

My friend Natalie had a small party, to which another friend brought a movie on his portable hard drive for all to watch. When Natalie got up to get a sweater, she tripped over the cord, killing the hard drive. She offered our friend $300 to replace it, but he demanded $1,800 to cover data retrieval too: the drive contained his digital artwork, not backed up. Who owes what?

So much to unpack... but all so unsavory.

1. you don't have parties where it's okay to bring laptops
   
2. you don't have parties where it's okay to bust open laptops
   
3. you don't have parties where it's okay to huddle around a laptop to watch a movie
   
4. you don't become friends with dbags (that covers the last 3 points I was going to make)
   

Signs I've made it as a college journalist?

I was plagiarized by some exceptionally desperate reviewer for a new zealand newspaper! And subsequently exonerated!

link: http://www.dispatch.co.za/2007/09/19/Easterncape/boni.html

[original article]

It's almost not sarcastic...

Here are a few random post ideas...

Hundreds of blog post ideas! Get some more »

• Write an essay.
• Take a figure of speech and write about its literal implications.
• Write about how lucky you are to be you.
• Write about how visitors can use your blog's RSS feeds and email subscriptions.
• Write about an untold secret.
• Write about your dreams.
• Create a slideshow about something cool.
• Write a post introducing new readers to your blog. Share links to your best posts.

Unfortunately, my secrets of blogging are all revealed with this website (hundreds more ideas, here.) Alas, it does not suggest blogging about blogging topics, so there, I win.

Robinson, Schroeder, and Majumdar

So Bill Richardson gave $1.5 million of New Mexico's money to a consulting firm in exchange for $100,000 of campaign money. The name of the company was CDR Financial Services and it was run by this guy:

"David Rubin, whose firm, CDR Financial Products, is entangled in investigations by the Internal Revenue Service, used to call his company Chambers, Dunhill, Rubin & Co. He says he picked those names because he liked the sound of them together. Chambers and Dunhill didn't exist." (Bloomberg)

Who does that?

happy travels, new year

I guarantee it folks, you'll never see the process of stuffing luggage into overhead compartments quite the same way...

If you're not part of the solution...

I was looking for something clever on the subject of being the problem.

Two things:

Amusing:


And hillarity:

My friend josh started a company

By day he stretches DNA on coverslips.

By night, he makes surfboard locks that look like this:

(He calls his company BoardSecure.)

worth noting

the 1976 electoral map:

That's Texas in blue, California in red.

Have a good day/night/earlyAM of CNN. I sure will.

Even the best role models...

Can't say it's up there with Eliot Spitzer, but reading this was kind of a disappointment. A 7-week marriage for Bill Nye (from '06).