13 November 2006

  • Wal-Mart brings back "Merry Christmas" while Best Buy stands firm behind "Happy Holidays."
  • Diagnose your own tone-deafness.
  • Everything you'd ever wanted to know about American women and guns but were afraid to ask.
  • The illustrated history of folding chairs.
  • Italian trains can't operate when thieves steal copper wiring for export to China.
  • Mystery of crumbling Euro notes solved--the culprit was meth.
  • One-sided counterfeit bill shows a real lack of dedication.
  • Each and every day a comic strip abuses the use of the silent second-to-last panel.
  • Next up: The Bollywood romantic musical extravaganza about the shy proofreader and the fun-loving graphic designer.
  • So much for stereotypes: Hippies and their marijuana weave "path of environmental destruction" in Northern California.
  • Blogging is so novel [in Saudi Arabia] that the equivalent term in Arabic, tadween, to chronicle, was coined only this year.
  • Most cases of identity theft go unsolved; however, of those that are cracked, half the time the crime is perpetrated by a family member.
  • As the speaker takes to the podium, several students silence their cellphones. One puts down his copy of The Wall Street Journal and takes out his Bible.
  • The 1927-1933 Chart of Pompous Prognosticators.
  • Photos of a Brooklyn playground that gets spooky at night.
  • Funny names for genes in the lab aren't so funny when they're attached to human abnormalities.
  • A new vaccine uses the body's natural immune system to destroy kidney tumors.
  • A new generation of Agent Orange victims is born, and the blame keeps changing hands.
  • It was surprising to discover that he has white hair, though when you stop to think about it, it’s hard to pinpoint what Guest really looks like.
  • Soap opera as fantasy sport.
  • Steve McQueen's sunglasses sell at auction for $70,200.
  • Twenty years on, Dark Horse Comics won't give up its edge.
  • Democrats want troops removed (aka "redeployed") from Iraq within the next four to six months.
  • Outgoing (aka "lame duck") Congress back in session today, with plans to pass ambitious bills before the January changeover.
  • Reid, Pelosi vow to reform earmarking in Congress--even though they're fairly well-known for (aka "guilty of") it themselves.
  • Meet the crisis negotiator who's called in when pirates plunder on the high seas.
  • Florida absentee ballot mailed with $500,000 stamp.
  • Procol Harum members will play a keyboard in court to prove who wrote the organ riff in "A Whiter Shade of Pale." (The video for the song, from 1967.)
  • It's official: A burrito is not a sandwich.
  • Why does this magazine smell like cheese?
  • Brazilian woman proves multiple gunshots to the head not as fatal as once thought.
  • I am Macaca; no, James Webb is.
  • MySpace popular among teenagers, bands, and Texans on Death Row.
  • Virginia cops drop 10-codes and a little bit of their soul dies.
  • "Do-gooders run things. I'm telling you, this life was very good for freaks." It's not easy to run a freakshow in the age of political correctness.
  • Audio: hear Bill Buford talk to turkeys other than Mario Batali.
  • This season's chef cookbook that you'll actually want.
  • Spitzer says no new MTA fare hikes, blinds us with his milky chest.
  • Maybe Bush can't tell a joke either: How his drapes quip to Pelosi fell flat.
  • Ford passes Reagan as the longest-living U.S. president.