Facts are real

Video of Bush on Global Warming (starring Will Ferrell).

Thanks to Jeanne for the link.

Antonio Davis

Without paying much attention to the details, NewMexiKen figured that if the Knicks Antonio Davis went into the stands, he deserved a suspension. That has to be a cardinal rule. But this report in The New York Times has me reconsidering.

“If I saw him go up there, if I’d have known what was happening, I probably would have went up there with him,” [Coach Larry] Brown said.

Googling Past the Graveyard

A good column on the Google subpoena and the inability to find Osama bin Laden from Maureen Dowd. She begins:

I don’t like the thought of Dick Cheney ogling my Googling.

Because what I’m Googling, of course, is Dick Cheney. I have to constantly monitor how Vice Voyeur is pushing the federal government to constantly monitor millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls, e-mail notes and Internet searches.

If you want to know why the Grim Peeper is willing to turn this country into a police state to take his version of democracy to other countries, just do a Google search under “antiterrorism,” “government snooping,” “overreaching” and “fruitcake.”

It was hard to know which story yesterday was scarier: Osama bin Laden, still alive and taunting the U.S., or the Justice Department’s trying to force Google to turn over a suspiciously broad array of information on millions of users’ searches and Web addresses, supposedly to investigate online crime involving pornography.

Green Eggs and Ham

A review of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham in The Wall Street Journal includes this:

The second way to interpret the book is as a celebration, albeit a mischievous one, of two particularly American traits: salesmanship and open-mindedness. Sam-I-am is the consummate entrepreneur, although, clearly, he does not believe in soft-sell. He is convinced of his product’s attractiveness, and the evangelism of his pitch is evident. He wants the Protagonist to “see the light.” However annoying one might be tempted to find Sam-I-am, he retains our sympathy for as long as his interlocutor refuses to try his product. How could he know that he doesn’t like green eggs and ham? Has he tried them? Why won’t he try them? What if we all refused to do things simply because we haven’t done them before?

It’s actually an interesting essay on the book.

Beyond Coincidence

From a New York Times review of Beyond Coincidence: Amazing Stories of Coincidence and the Mystery and Mathematics Behind Them:

A woman in Alabama decided to visit her sister. Her sister, unbeknownst to her, decided the same. They hit each other head-on on a rural highway. Both died. And both drove Jeeps. That counts as a rare coincidence, although not as rare, perhaps, as the case of Roy Cleveland Sullivan, a Virginia forest ranger who was struck by lightning seven times, or the existence of an ice dealer named I. C. Shivers.
…

On the other hand, it is deeply satisfying to know that a Canadian farmer named McDonald has the postal code EIEIO, and there is at least half a screenplay in the tale of a bank robber who, hitting the same bank and the same teller a second time, escaped because the bank guard and the managers were in a back office reviewing videotapes of the first robbery.

Best free software

The Lifehacker Pack, a list of the best free software.

It’s the birthday

… of Paul Scofield. The Oscar-winner (A Man for All Seasons) is 84.

… of Jack Nicklaus. He’s 66.

… of Placido Domingo. He’s 65.

… of Geena Davis. She’s 50.