I can think of plenty of folks at Fox News I’d like to see waterboarded

This would be awesome.
NEW YORK (AP) – Keith Olbermann says he’ll continue to pressSean Hannity to follow through on an offer to be waterboarded as a benefit for the families of U.S. troops.
The MSNBC host says he’ll donate $1,000 for every second Hannity can withstand the technique. Waterboarding has been at the center of a debate over whether the U.S. [...]

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Mr. Donaldson, the van is here to take you to Shady Acres

Count longtime ABC journalist Sam Donaldson as a prominent nutjob. On the Sunday morning program “This Week,” he expressed his desire to be at Fidel Castro’s deathbed so he could ask Fidel at his dying breath whether he was responsible for the Kennedy assassination.
Yeah, you read that right. And if you don’t believe me, just [...]

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Walking Wii-wounded

I enjoyed this story in the NYT about the rising incidence of Wii-related injuries, mostly due to repetitive stress injuries and other muscle aches and pains.
In the moments after I felt the pop in my left shoulder, the sensation I felt was not pain. It was panic. How exactly does a 40-year-old man explain to [...]

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Walking on the side of the information superhighway

An interesting story from Macworld about how the United States lags behind much of the world in terms of broadband usage and speeds.
It’s pretty shameful to think most home users are fortunate even to have the option to pay high rates for download speeds in excess of 10 Mbps, give or take a couple of [...]

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Faith-based rehab?

Reading a story about the drunk driver responsible for the car accident that killed Angels rookie Nick Adenhart and two others last week, I came across this description of the rehab program the driver, Andrew Gallo, underwent following a previous DUI arrest.
As part of Gallo’s plea deal on that arrest, he went to the Bible [...]

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The devil’s in the details

Here’s a blurb of an AP story reporting on an uptick in the proportion of African Americans playing in Major League Baseball.
NEW YORK — The percentage of black players in the major leagues increased to 10.2 percent last year, the first rise since the 1995 season.
The sport had reached an all-time low of 8.2 percent [emphasis [...]

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Smart classroom, dumb instructor?

Practical advice for anyone teaching a course for the first time: always have a backup plan whenever planning to use any equipment more complex than chalkboard and overhead projector.
The very first time I gave a lecture, some three years ago when I was a TA in a survey of twentieth-century Europe, I had planned to [...]

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More reaction from Prague to Obama’s visit

Dnes published an article about how Czechs experienced Obama’s weekend visit to Prague. My translation follows.
We want to see your hands! shouted agents. Then Barack and Michelle held out their right.
At 4 a.m., Barack Obama was most likely fast asleep, unlike those who wanted to experience the atmosphere of his Prague speech to the fullest. [...]

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Obama in Prague

Reactions from Czechs to Obama’s speech in Prague on nuclear proliferation and arms control:
Although some Czech officials had even quietly discouraged Mr. Obama’s speech, worried that it would intensify the Czech public’s fears of being caught between the United States and Russia. But the crowd of Czechs here mostly seemed transfixed.
Irena Kalhousova, 30, a lecturer [...]

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O Day

Obama arrived in Prague yesterday for a two-day visit in conjunction with a U.S.-EU summit held in the Czech capital. Needless to say, there’s a lot of interest among Czechs in the new American president’s visit. Lots of people lined the area around the airport to watch Air Force One arrive, and thousands turned out [...]

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