According to Stephen Colbert, apparently there really is such a sport. I am finding it increasingly hard to tell the difference between parody and the real thing. (It starts at the 4:00 minute mark.) [Read more…]
The labels ‘left’ and ‘right’ in politics originated in the first French National Assembly in 1789 following the revolution, and was named according to the seating arrangement of the groups in the chamber as seen from the president’s chair. The largely economic views associated with those groups became synonymous with left-wing and right-wing politics, with the left seeking social justice largely through redistributive social and economic policies. [Read more…]
A lot of outrage has been expressed at the behavior of the school administrators and the school nurse who did not allow a student suffering an asthma attack the use of his inhaler. The question naturally arises as to how anyone could be so callous as to not respond to an immediate visible need. This was especially so with respect to the nurse whom one would think would put medical needs first and bureaucratic niceties second. [Read more…]
Anyone who is even minimally aware of how climate science works knows that you cannot use any one weather event or one anomalous season in any single location to argue for or against global warming. But some of the most vociferous opponents of the global warming hypothesis tend to be scientifically naïve and parochial and think that way (“Look at that snow! So much for global warming! Ha! Ha!). Maybe such people in this area of Ohio will be sobered up by the fact that the last winter was the warmest on record (it was barely a winter) and that we are predicted to have a warmer than normal summer. [Read more…]
Audra McDonald, starring in a revival of Porgy and Bess, was interviewed on The Colbert Report. I usually do not enjoy interviews with performers that much but this was a really good one, with her giving some great background to the musical. [Read more…]
Here is a rather tragic story about a school nurse who would not let a student having an asthma arrack use his inhaler because he did not have an updated medical release form in his file. The school called the mother to come but by the time she did the student had collapsed on the floor. [Read more…]
Via Jonathan Turley, another prank that is somewhat more elaborate than the Polaroid one. [Read more…]
I have written before about how Mike Huckabee advocates some really hateful ideas and uses inflammatory language while trying to portray himself as a genial, bass guitar playing, avuncular figure. [Read more…]
Memorial day is tomorrow and the country is awash with flags, especially in cemeteries. I used to idly wonder who carefully arranged those flags in neat rows and assumed that it was some private veterans body or something like the Daughter of the American Revolution or the Rotary Club or something like that. I discovered that at least in our county it is paid for by the county government, i.e., the taxpayers. [Read more…]
I was familiar with the popular line “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” long before I had seen the film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre that it purportedly came from. But when I got around to actually seeing the film, I was surprised to find that the words were not quite the same. [Read more…]