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Look over there !

Judging by government and public policy: 2000 2006 2007 2005 2009 2008 2002 2001 2003 2004

Is it just me, or are at least two guys in this Nepalese mob wearing The North Face brand coats? If there's a better way to identify yo...

"It is unknown precisely when humans first began splashing their friends with water ."

Yesterday, the Senate Majority Leader announced a compromise health insurance bill, which will go before the full Senate. To the relief of m...

... and we're back. The most important news of the last month, I'm sure you'll agree, is that Necco Wafers are switching to an ...

The New York Times -- and not even the Style Section -- has started reporting on coupon-clippers , a subject formerly the domain of Wife Swa...

"Murad III's mismanagement may have led to early Ottoman defeats in the war , but he sired more than 100 children with 1,200 concub...

Our correspondents direct us to Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill , an unpublished and subsequently extirpated video game written in 1993. While ...

Reuters reports that Cablevision, a major provider of cable in the New York area, is introducing "a service to enable subscribers to i...

The New York Times reported yesterday on the death of the oldest person in the world, at age 115. This is a genre I like very much, not bec...

I'm not going to see it anyway, and the critics don't seem to think it's worth mentioning, let alone explaining, but maybe someo...

Christian: ECCE HOMO SOLA FIDE 1832 Reform Bill: IRON DUKE EARL GREY Redundant: HAND HAND FIST FIST Update: MIES ROHE

Liberty Mutual, the insurance company previously best known for selling insurance and not making a big deal out of it, has launched a websit...

The Pope , viceroy of God on Earth (Midwest Division) is taking the summer off, "blogging light", and exchanging his dalmatic for ...

A drunk-driving crash will henceforth be known as "taking a wrong turn down Johnnie Walker Road."

"Please don't pet me" -- and then a silhouette of a sitting dog -- "I'm working."

Like all good Americans, I spent my day thinking about Barack Obama's birth certificate. For those of you who would like to play along a...

"Nearly an entire generation of Newfoundland's future leaders were killed ."

Anthropologists would know better than I, but along with flint knives and huts made out of those gigantic leaves, every primitive society se...

The New York Times profiles the bullied children of tomorrow: Alex Nicola... likes to watch TV without his pants on. Next week, an exposé o...

The first four ingredients listed on the "Liquid Nature" brand hand soap in our bathroom: Sodium polyoxyethylene lauryl ether sulf...

Now that the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, sponsored by Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts has passed the Hou...

"[A] dance about freedom may better represent freedom than actual discourse ."

They happen so reliably that most of the time, we don't even notice them. In every sitcom, and most other TV programs, practically every...

As I noted with the advent of Twitter , the number of ways for people to keep in touch with friends, relatives, and acquaintances, and those...

When it comes to waiting in lines, I'm a gracious person. I follow the rules, and wait my turn like a good boy. (And for what?) Of cours...

As part of the fact-finding mission that is my life, I've been watching a lot of TV lately. In between the ads for cable TV and the ads ...

Man was given dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing that feedeth upon the mud at the bottom of the...

Somebody accidentally hit a light switch, prompting Obama to ask: ''Who turned off the lights, guys?'' -- sample of the humo...

Knuckle tattoo: On the knuckles of the left hand, MARX. On the right , RAND.

A question for all you stage magicians out there: Suppose you truly had the magic power of clairvoyance, and were able to know the order of ...

Letters to the copy editor 'Popular Jokes, Explained' 'Banging Your Head Against the Wall: Do's and Don'ts.' 'We...

While it's gratifying to see an Associated Press story about politics use the word livid , and the ominous phrase "talking tougher...

Michael Pollan, the author of In Defense of Food and other textbooks of dietary virtue, is the oracle a confused nation looks to when it wa...

"By the mid-1930s the Roaring Twenties were long over."

Here's a Web ad I saw today: Bleach and ammonia?

In the old, old days of Sigmund Freud, it was clear what children wanted: Sexual gratification. Shortly afterward, it ceased to be nice to t...

Edward de Bono, previously best known for inviting us to wear toothbrushes in our shirt pockets, has developed his own special code . Like ...

"Digital," as you will know by heart if you watch TV commercials, "is better." I suppose it's a matter of taste. As ...

The word has come down from internet central: Twitter is it. Now, I'm not exactly sure what Twitter is. I gather it involves mobile phon...

Look at models long enough and you realize they're all so pretty. Why this should be though is a mystery. Models for cosmetics, sure. Th...

It's Fashion Week (I think), and that can only mean that once again, I have no idea how the real economy works. Again and again, they ex...

"Louis XIV is popularly known as the Sun King (French: le Roi Soleil ) because he was the source of light for his people and for Europ...

As Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress prepare to pass a massive stimulus bill, the word "massive" is on everybody's li...

A little while ago, I saw a bumper sticker reading "Spoons are for stirring coffee." They are indeed, but it's only because of...

We certainly don't know much about musical theater around here, but we know that like Hair or Porgy and Bess , writing a musical about a...

While we're on the subject of the opera, I think the amount and prevalence of love in operas is shameful. I don't mean to say that l...

From the Metropolitan Opera's Board of Directors: Glen W. Bowersock Van Cliburn O. Delton Harrison, Jr. Hartley R. Rogers Miss Leontyne ...

As an enduring legacy of the animal rights movement, every American knows in his heart that hero pets are real, and they live, mild-mannered...

The great thing about America is that anybody can have a website. I have a website, and you probably have a website, and now the Patent Offi...

If you follow Fox's hit TV show House , and I know you do, then you could recite the premise in your sleep: Hugh Laurie's character ...

States with panhandles that stick out clockwise: Idaho Utah Texas (2x) Mississippi Maryland West Virginia (2x) Connecticut States with panha...

If you were a politician named "Weiner", would you rather have your name pronounced "Wiener" or "Whiner"?

All the world is waiting with bated breath, but think about it. It can only be the Pope . At its founding as a nation, America threw its lot...

Today, the New York Times conducts an intrepid expedition into the world of poor people , following every subway line to its end, out in the...

One of the things they don't tell you about New York before you go to live there is that it has its own TV station, NYCTV. Not only is N...

At the Olympic finals, the next gymnast is announced. Cut to the gymnast, looking at the parallel bars, then down at his feet, pacing nervou...

Just another adjective that nobody will ever use to describe me .

The political story of the day is that John McCain was caught plagiarizing Wikipedia in his latest speech, a primer on Georgia. When it beca...

In the second paragraph of the New York Times' recent piece on ice , the author admits that the premise of his article is "kooky or...

Not to be crass or anything, but I think you could really make a lot of money with a kissing booth. According to tradition, kissing booths a...

Lost technology, the relics of a decayed civilization, is a trope as old as fantasy writing itself. But history doesn't supply much to b...

Practical Joke Idea: Water balloons filled with thin sugar syrup.

Is it me, or is this paragraph peculiar? Fears that an economic slowdown in the United States could spread to other parts of the world and ...

Launching a nuclear strike will now be known as (giving someone a) plutonium overcoat .

Why do so many people own washing machines, and dryers? Sure, they're a sign that you've made it in this world, a status-symbol some...