You wouldn't kid us......surely

Seen on the cover of a print edition of The Economist while shopping (paraphrased): "Doing something about America's economic tailspin."

Apparently it will take a magazine of that name, no doubt staffed by numerous Economists, interviewing or quoting from Economists, to tell us what should be obvious....but somehow we can't face it, and apparently on any level:

STOP SPENDING.

There. Now I'm an "Economist."

Economics has slid into repute as a putatitve "Social Science" (when no such thing exists), and treated as a secular religion. A half-century since the rise and fall of Keynesian theory (which should have killed off Economics as anything but stargazing, but didn't), some of its practitioners are regularly elevated to the eminence of shamans in our culture. And that's exactly what they are: the shamans and druids of a false religion. And they will retain their eminence because of that most powerful force in the universe: the human will to believe in something, even if demonstrably wrong, false-headed, and destructive.

Cut to the Chase.....

I really think this says all that needs be discussed Re: incipient pandemics.
(Again, thanks to xkcd.)

Fashionable Catastrophe

I love reading this type of science article.....but then I have to stop and reflect that there's not all that much science in it. Right now, it's quite the fashion to blither on about catastrophe and Armageddons of all sorts and stripes, but this article -in a putatively respectable "journal of record," is typical of much of what one reads and/or views. A theory built upon linked hypotheses, all resting on very limited and even tenuous physical evidence. The problem is that once the "fashion effect" takes hold, and the theory begins to appear on multiple web sites, then The Hysteria Channel takes over, or The Discovery of a New Disaster Channel, The Learning about Lahars and Tsunamis Channel, or The All Weather is a Disaster Channel....and suddenly a fringe theory has become a sort of "fact" in the common wisdom, a mountain of speculation with only the most tenuous base of support in fact. But facts are such dreary things......

Putin Abducted by Aliens: Film at 11

I had no idea that Pravda had turned into such an investigative powerhouse. This puts all the theories I've heard about Don Imus' firing to shame....

Where Would I Begin?

Family of Faggot Fans Fly the Flag


....probably with "Don't practice your alliteration on me!" However, as one moves into the story, the phrase "cultural divide" that Brian Tiemann, at Peeve Farm employs seems hardly adequate. We like to think of our British brethren as linguistically divided from us only by their use of amusing words like "lorry," "carriageway," "boot," and "lift." But this doth take the breath away....and the only thing that could possibly top it would be the given name of the head of household to be "Howdy."