Tina Fey Accepts "Nathaniel Hawthorne Prize for Judgmental Personality" at the "Tea Party Rifle Range and Bowling Alley"

Watch the full episode. See more Mark Twain Prize.

If You're Bored with Vodka + Jell-o

Mind you, there is nothing wrong with vodka--jell-o shots. But these look awesome.

Dave Barry's Blurred Groin

We don't think Dave Barry is as funny as some people seem to think he is, but he turned his humiliating pat-down by the TSA into good material, which is worth something. Thing is, last time we flew, we weren't looking for new material for the ol' NPR segment--we were just trying to exercise our right to travel freely. And our right to privacy.

ADDENDUM: TSA agents do not have the authority to remove prostheses from travelers' bodies, but may demand the traveler remove the prosthesis.

ADDENDUM #2: After TSA agent #1 pulled down a woman's blouse and exposed her to the entire airport, TSA agent #2 exclaimed, "Damn, you mean I missed that?! Thank God for the video tape!"

QotD: The Bullshit Detector

In 1914, John Alexander Smith, Oxford University Professor, began his two-year lecture series with this benediction: 

“Gentlemen, you are now about to embark on a course of studies that (will) form a noble adventure…Let me make this clear to you. ..nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life – save only this – that if you work hard and intelligently, you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole purpose of education.”

via.

How Cats Lap Water

Beautiful research inspired by the family cat, published in Science this week. via.

The FDA Grows a Pair

The FDA released 36 graphic warning labels for cigarettes, mostly gruesome, for public comment.

We agree that smoking should be discouraged, and we agree that pictures of autopsy specimens and cancer victims are more powerful than staid Surgeon General's Warnings.

"blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks

Of course, "necessary" is in the eyes of the author, not the rules of English usage and grammar.

Atelier for Malerei

"Studio for Painting and Calligraphy," ca 1910. Flickr stream and backstory.

Pre-Election Round Up

Christine O'Donnell is for separation of thought and speech. The Republican party machine that thinks she should be Delaware's senator even though her closest tie to Delaware is that she defaulted on her mortgage there also doesn't mind that she doesn't know the difference between the 14th and 16th amendments. Since GOP voter turnout is directly proportional to the stupidity of the candidate, we predict she'll win Joe Biden's seat in a landslide.

Sharron Angle thinks the difference between Asians and Latinos is important--ie, they're not all just brown people--but isn't sure which is which--ie, they all look alike to her. Again, the high-functioning racist morons that pass for GOP voters are likely to elect her in a land slide.

Meanwhile, Juan Williams at NPR announced that when he sees people in "Muslim garb" on an airplane with him, he changes flights; bastion of liberal media that it is, NPR fired him for putting opinion above the news. Fox News immediately offered him a $2 million contract if he will only keep putting opinion above the news, which is to say, he'll be senator from Ohio as soon as Diebold gets the check the write-in campaign is launched.

Longform.org

Sign up at instapaper.com then head over to longform.org and re-discover reading a good article that's longer than a blog post. This is seriously what makes the iPad a killer device.

As good a time as any to honor the 10th amendment

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Thought for the Day

When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.

--Sinclair Lewis

Khan Academy

Loads of online lectures. Learn anything, from high school algebra to how the capital markets work. Now if only there was time to absorb this stuff...

Language & the Way We Perceive the World

The myth of Eskimos with 30+ words for snow will live forever, but this is about the real impositions of language our on experience with the world.

The Panama Canal's Ripple Effects

Panama is expanding its canal, which makes sense, given that they make up to $300,000 for every ship that passes through. But here's what makes this such huge news: the largest ship, called a Panamax, that can traverse the canal is also the largest ship ports along the East Coast must accommodate.

The original locks are about 1000ft long, a little under 110ft wide, and barely 40ft deep; there is also a bridge over the canal that provides nearly 200ft of clearance at low tide, which is apparently more than most ships drafting less than 40ft need. But for the 100th anniversary of the canal's opening, there will be a new set of locks parallel to the original pairs, nearly 60ft deep, 180ft wide, and 1200ft long. 

That means that the Port of Virginia will become much more important for the next generation or so, because they are already deep enough for a New Panamax and they are preparing for the new volume by doubling the size of every railroad tunnel between Norfolk and Chicago. The Savannah River will be dredged deeper and similar railroad improvements will follow. In New York, the harbor itself is big enough, but the port per se is no deeper than a Panamax, so it will have to be re-dredged and possibly redesigned, and the Bayonne Bridge is barely big enough for a Panamax--so within another 20 years, the Bayonne will be gone. Mind-blowing to think of all the repercussions of digging a bigger trench across Panama.

More and More, We're In Favor of English as the National Language

If only there were a way for Sarah Palin to find this out BEFORE she speaks. 

Secret Decoder Ring for Business-Speak

A Brief History of Junk Food

From the NYTimes. Popsicles were in fact named after dear ol' Dad and Twinkies were originally banana-flavored. But even harder to believe, there was a time when a Big Gulp wouldn't fit in the cupholder in your car!