“A few decades ago, Darwinians and creationists had a de facto nonaggression pact: Creationists would let Darwinians reign in biology class, and otherwise Darwinians would leave creationists alone. [However], afew years ago, such biologists as Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers started violating the nonaggression pact.” ( The Chronicle of Higher Education).
Had just been getting impatient with the President rolling over on Republican lies about the budget deficit when he finally decided to go on the offensive about the issue, with an apt comparison:
When Mitt Romney and other Republicans carp about the dismal economy without mentioning that Mr. Obama inherited a $1 trillion deficit from his Republican predecessor, “it’s like somebody goes to a restaurant, orders a big steak dinner, martini, all that stuff,” Mr. Obama said, winding up to his punch line as his audience tittered. “And then, just as you’re sitting down, they leave, and accuse you of running up the tab!” (NYTimes)
How’s this for a non sequitur? It reminds me of this classic Abbott and Costello routine my friend Bob had just forwarded to me (what, you don’t know Abbott and Costello??!!), from The Noose Hangs High (1948):
‘Game of Thrones’ puts former POTUS on a spike: ‘In the commentary track on the tenth episode of the first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones DVD, David Benioff, co-creator of the show reveals an amusing secret about one of the severed heads seen on spikes: “The last head on the left is George Bush” and then his partner chimes in “George Bush’s head appears in a couple beheading scenes.”“It’s not a choice, it’s not a political statement,” explained Benioff. “It’s just, we had to use what heads we had around.”A likely story…They’ve got the video at io9.’ (Dangerous Minds).
It may not be what you think. “Do rebelliousness, emotional control, toughness and thrill-seeking still make up the essence of coolness? Can performers James Dean and Miles Davis still be considered the models of cool?
Research led by a University of Rochester Medical Center psychologist and published by the Journal of Individual Differences has found the characteristics associated with coolness today are markedly different than those that generated the concept of cool…
In the journal article, the research is described as the first systematic, quantitative examination of what characteristics recur in popular understandings of the cool personality…
At some levels, participants in the study still appreciated the traditional elements of cool, such as rebelliousness and detachment, but not as strongly as friendliness and warmth.” (medicalxpress.com).
“Researchers at the University of Kansas say that people can accurately judge 90 percent of a stranger’s personality simply by looking at the person’s shoes. “Shoes convey a thin but useful slice of information about their wearers,” the authors wrote in the new study published in the Journal of Research in Personality. “Shoes serve a practical purpose, and also serve as nonverbal cues with symbolic messages.” (National Review Online).
