Evolution

At first I was like:


But then I was like:

More Bread!

In political action inspired by the people in Tunisia, Egyptians get in on the bread and protest craze! More photos here.

This guy

This guy is the best. In the U.S., he would have instantly been shot for brandishing a loaf of bread in such a threatening manner. It is the price of freedom. Hopefully the Tunisians do not have to learn this. Here is an amazing collection of photographs taken in Tunisia recently.

Worries assuaged; Math problems persist

In case you thought the U.S. military forgot its compassionate side:

On Monday, U.S. military officials also strongly denied allegations that Manning, being held in connection with the WikiLeaks' release of classified documents, has been "tortured" and held in "solitary confinement" without due process. . . He is confined to his single-person cell 23-hours per day, permitted one hour to exercise, permitted reading material and given one hour per day to watch television.

See? Not torture.

As always, our poor children:

Growing numbers of students are sent to college at increasingly higher costs, but for a large proportion of them the gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and written communication are either exceedingly small or empirically nonexistent. . . They might graduate, but they are failing to develop the higher-order cognitive skills that it is widely assumed college students should master.

Widely assumed? Even accepting that, whatever shall we do? How can we possibly make every college graduate as smart as the author of this paper, who seems mystified that college graduates are often dunces and that the college diploma is a just a license to work in an office, rather than at McDonald's? It is a dilemma.

EDIT: I should point out that Exhibit A uses this paper to take a pot-shot at people majoring in business & education (If bolding a line in a quote can be read as an endorsement), in the midst of posts about business and education.

Cold Gettin' Dumb

“I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation's military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack,”

All The News That's Fit For Large Print

Reminder: the New York Times is the print equivalent of Pat Boone's No More Mr. Nice Guy.


However, I do enjoy living in the 1890s thru 1910s. International Anarchist Syndicates are detonating bombs in Europe and Nihilism is corrupting American youth.

No New Movies in Hollywood

Has anybody seen this movie? I thought it was popular, but it seems like nobody has seen it before. Or, maybe there is some newer remake starring G. Gordon Liddy as Travis Bickle where where his apartment walls are covered with Wall Street Journal editorial pages. "Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take the marginal tax rate anymore."

At least not at Christmastime

Via Stumplane, a "bad Santa" gets control of Harrods's (a department store of some sort, I presume) light display. Is it mandatory they find a Midwestern American to supply the appropriately austere quote:

“Honestly, I am disgusted, ” said Irene Rider, 59, from Gary, Indiana. “I was with my grandchildren. We had just gotten off the bus. I said ‘look everybody’ and pointed up to the lights – but you know what the lights said? They said f**k off. And that is not an appropriate message for a child. At least not at Christmastime.”

Maybe on Easter?

Frownland

Not to steal BLCKDGRD's gimmick, but it seems that Captain Beefheart has died. IOZ posts Bach, I'll post Beefheart:

Appropriate

IOZ continues to document the prevalence of sadomasochism on the internet.

Trouble

Reviewing my notes in preparation of my oft-delayed final, I come across my notes on the beloved Contracts Clause:

Hey, CC! What's going on?
Oh, word? That is cold blooded, CC! You know, my cousin was in a similar situation, where he thought he had a dope job at this warehouse uptown, near the river. It turned out that the whole thing was some front for a slave-prostitution ring! Now, I know my cousin has done some ill shit in his day, so it seems a bit funny that he would have no idea what was actually going down at that place, but I'll believe him when he tells me that he didn't. Anyways, the whole place got shut down. He said he was pulling up to work one day, and saw cops everywhere, arresting people and shit, so he just left.

As above, so below

Our haute couture high-priests at NASA did not discover an alien life-form, or even a life-form that is created from completely alien material, what it found was a life-form that can eat trash.

Formative Years

I believe this was the first issue of Mad Magazine I ever read. I have vague memories of seeing this issue, but I am pretty sure I saw the Batman issue first. September 1989 would indicate that my development in these matters may have been a little slow (I was 8 then), but I suppose I still turned out alright.

Spend more working hours here.

Shocked into speech

I thought about even deleting this blog. I should have.

US Marines Shrug Off Afghan Anger at Civilian Killings

Indeed, tribal elders regularly complain to the Marines about the killings. Officials said no investigations would be taken on the basis of the elders complaints, and said the fact that the elders haven’t been killed by the Taliban was “proof” that they were in league with the Taliban and the complaints were a trick.

Proof. It's a fact. Look it up. I don't even like Kids in the Hall, but the horror of this story has thrust them back into my mind.