Ol' School Sesame Street

I grew up on this stuff, back when PBS for kids was almost as much about entertaining as it was learning. What is this video supposed to teach us other than exploration is fun?

RIP Harvey Korman (1927 -- 2008)

Harvey Korman, one of comedy's funniest straightmen is no more.

Sol just 1/1,000,000,000,000th of Milky Way's mass

Astronomers, those clever bastards, have refined their techinques for measuring the mass of our galaxy. The results are in, and the Milky Way is just a hair under one trillion solar masses. That's a whole lot, or as Douglas Adams put it, "Space is really big."

Here's an article about the weigh-in at Space.com.

How the media helps make you stupid...

Of course it's ultimately your fault if you're a moron, but if you're a dumbass you've probably had a lot of help acheiving that status. Here's a video about how you get dumbed down:

Typical media horsecrap

April new single-family home sales rose 3.3 percent

Isn't that great! Home sales are up! Woo-hoo! Er, right? Nope. Read the actual article underneath this Reuters headline and you'll find this:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sales of newly constructed single-family homes rose 3.3 percent in April to a 526,000 annual rate but they were down 42 percent from a year ago, which was the largest year-over-year drop in nearly 27 years, government data on Tuesday showed.

Down 42 percent from a year ago?! Largest drop in 27 years?! Who exactly do they think is dumb enough to fall for this? You and me, that's who.

Just to make sure there's credit where credit is due, the people responsible for this sterling example of modern journalism are reporter Joanne Morrison and editor Neil Stempleman. I tried to find email for these folks so anyone who wanted to could tell them how much we appreciate this kind of reporting, but of course the addresses aren't readily available. Wonder why.

VideoLectures

Expert lectures on all kinds of subjects, including law, history, art, music, sciences and more.

Are you on the RADAR?

Is the U.S. government compiling a list of citizens to be rounded up if martial law is declared? It appears so.

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, "There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived 'enemies of the state' almost instantaneously." He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

What went wrong with the dream? How did we end up here? More important, how do we get out?

The author is Christopher Ketcham and the article was published, ironically, by Radar Magazine. Read the entire article here.