Twenty-year-old Laura Hall from Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, has become the first woman—nay—person to be banned from drinking everywhere within England or Wales. Hall was issued a Drinking Banning Order, which restricts her from going into any bar, club, or any drinking establishment whatsoever. She’s also not allowed to buy adult beverages, carry unsealed containers containing such adult refreshment, or drink in public. She’s been convicted multiple times of drinking-related disturbances, as well as flouting previous bans on local drinking. The order to stop drinking, which also forces her to take a course to tackle her drinking problem,...
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New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Fried at Last” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s Line of the Day is from Roger “Life of the Party” Cohen’s column “The Living and...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – 16 April 2010
Good morning, everybody. Steven Seagal has…troubles. We have your morning constitutional: President Obama on Thursday night announced new rules ordering hospitals that accept Medicare and Medicaid to grant visitation rights to same-sex partners. The new rules also make it easier for patients to allow their partners to make medical decisions on their behalf. Volcanic ash continues to hold up air transport in Europe for the second day, swamping other modes of transport as travelers seek alternate modes of transportation. Poland is hoping to not have to postpone the funeral for late President Lech Kaczyński, as the ash cloud...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Fried at Last” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s is from the almost-always-on-point Gail “The Colander” Collins, who in her column “Celebrating the Joys of...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – 15 April 2010
Good morning, folks. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the brains behind South Park and Team America: World Police, are writing a Broadway musical about Mormons. We’re bringing you your morning constitutional: Ash spewing from an Icelandic volcano has shut down all flights in U.K. It also caused shutdowns in Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, and has had a ripple effect of shutdowns and cancellations in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. It’s tax day, so, naturally, the tea partiers are out. The 2010 tax day could the best tax day of your life. And, sure, maybe...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – 14 April 2010
Good morning, everybody. Richard Dawkins may want to arrest the Pope, but here’s your morning constitutional: Hundreds have been killed by an earthquake in western China on Wednesday. The earthquakes hit China’s Qinghai province, home mostly to ethnic Tibetans. Another sign the economy is rebounding: Retail sales rose for the third straight month in March by 1.6 percent, a higher rise than economists expected. In the first congressional election since the health care reform bill passed into law, Florida state Sen. Ted Deutch, Democrat, easily beat the Republican, Ed Lynch, who had tried to make the special...
Continue reading...Juggalos: How do magnets work?
Jonah Weiner at Slate, for some reason, brings us a review of the new Insane Clown Posse video “Miracles.” It’s a rather grand review, comparing this particular posse of clowns to a rap-rock Wordsworth “dropping f-bombs aplenty in praise of the natural sublime,” for example. The song is a catalog of whoa-dude epiphanies, the sort that teenagers in movies enjoy while lying on the hoods of subcompacts, passing joints, and gazing up at the stars. Wide-eyed and wondrous, rappers Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope hail a variety of phenomena that will “blow your brain,” from “the Milky...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Fried at Last” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s is from Roger “Life of the Party” Cohen’s excellent column, “The Glory of Poland,” in which...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – 13 April 2010
Good morning, everybody. The “brains” behind the the Jersey Shore have concocted another legend, only this time: Massholes. Well, then, on to your morning constitutional: The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 11,000 yesterday for the first time since September 2008, a hopeful sign that Wall Street believes that the economy is on the right track. Bloomberg reports that the trade deficit widened in February because Americans are purchasing more imports, another sign that the economy is rebounding. From Slate: How the U.S. economic recovery will be faster and and stronger than anybody expects. Buoyed by Ukraine’s decision...
Continue reading...No hung parliament here
With the 6 May election coming up in the U.K., there have been a great many predictions of the outcome, and most of them entail either an outright Tory win, or, more likely, a hung parliament. Of course, the obvious next prediction to make, at least by those who are paid to predict outcomes, is how the hung parliament will be structured, and, most importantly, which side will the Liberal Democrats, the perpetual third party who have not enjoyed any power since World War II, will join. It’s pretty much accepted that, given a hung parliament, whichever...
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