Category: Aggregated

Last week, NASA confirmed that there is water on Mars. This could be some kind of cross-promotional hullabaloo for the movie The Martian, which came out this week, or it could mean there’s life on Mars. If it’s the latter, it behooves us to provide a welcome letter for Martians to get acquainted with our planet. Greetings, Welcome to America. We are members of a cultural group called “The West” and it’s generally understood the West is the best. America is known as the best of the best. We’re the ones who sent you the signal and it’s likely we’re … Continue reading →

This May, many advanced math students in Scotland were flummoxed by an exam provided by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA). The test was so difficult that over 14,000 students signed two online petitions urging the SQA to consider the unusual difficulty and grade accordingly. In fact, some found the stress to be so taxing that it reduced them to tears. SQA responded to these fears, stating that a pass mark would be determined once each test was graded. In August, the passing grade was announced to be a very low 34 percent. The assessment was decidedly too challenging and the passing mark … Continue reading →

What do you know about Lawrence Lessig? If your life depended on writing a page on the career of Lawrence Lessig, and you had 30 minutes to write the essay, and you were in a room without access to the Internet, would I be wise to sell you a life insurance policy? Quite frankly, I had never heard of Lawrence Lessig. Yet he has raised a million dollars in one month to run for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States. When you think about this, it really is astounding. Here is someone you have never heard … Continue reading →

If you were an evil dictator, would you mess with this man? Having recognized that the country is calling on me to restore order and common sense, and that my election as dictator is the last hope of Western Civilization, I hereby throw my sombrero into the ring. Below is a compact summary of the wise and forward-looking policies which will characterize my reign. Interposed are thrilling slogans that will throw you into an electoral frenzy. Social Policy: On the day of my coronation, I will undertake a sweeping reform of society, beginning with radical feminists. We will hunt them with … Continue reading →

A former CIA director withheld information about President John F Kennedy’s assassination, according to declassified agency reports. The CIA reports, which were declassified last fall, claim that then-agency head John McCone and other top officials were part of a ‘benign cover-up’ surrounding the assassination of Kennedy in November 1963. The report’s author, CIA historian David Robarge, claims McCone withheld information to keep the Warren Commission focused on what the agency believed to by the ‘best truth… that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone,’ according to Politico. McCone and others were ‘complicit’ in keeping ‘incendiary’ information from … Continue reading →

Last week, it was widely reported in the mainstream media that the autopsy of a woman who died of pneumonia earlier this year in the state of Washington found that she had been infected with measles, making this the first confirmed case of measles-related death in the US since 2003. Playing its usual role, the mainstream media is up in arms, blaming the death on parents who choose not to vaccinate their children and telling parents that to not vaccinate is irresponsible. Rather than journalists doing their job by asking hard questions about public policy and seeking out the answers, … Continue reading →

When Thomas Crapper popularised the modern flush toilet in homes around Britain, he could not have known the magnitude of the domestic problem he was creating. For years, toilet etiquette has been a topic of consternation, with the seat in particular opening a rift of disagreement between the genders. It is popularly preached that men should put the seat down after relieving themselves, but why – in this age of so-called equality – is this still the case? “Chivalry!” you may shout; “kindness!” you may yell. Well, OK – but is that good enough? Because, shockingly, men like touching the … Continue reading →

Markets discover price via supply and demand: Big demand + limited supply = rising prices. Abundant supply + sagging demand = declining prices. Eventually, prices rise to a level that is unaffordable to the majority of potential buyers, with demand coming only from the wealthy. That’s the story of housing in New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area and other desirable locales that are currently magnets for global capital. In the normal cycle of supply and demand, new more affordable housing would be built, and prices would decline. But that isn’t happening in hot real estate markets in the … Continue reading →