Unpleasantries

a la Diderot

2011-06-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

Banks will never be profitable until the last DCM banker is strangled with the entrails of the last hedge fund salesman.

Take it to the Limit

2010-06-22T14:38:00.001-07:00

Well, you know that this song's by the Eagles
So it starts at the end of the day
With some thinkin', 'bout a woman, who somehow
Would never put out

So it's time for introspection
(Such a romantic guy)
Melancholy in direction
(Can't even try to try)
But that's not despair you're feelin'
It's really just
The feelin's just
It's really just you're bored

It was guitars and tequila
Now it's CDs and wine
So play me
That sweet bullshit
One more time

The Mask Becomes the Face

2008-09-09T00:55:00.001-07:00

Over at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum is now pretending to be an idiot. Perhaps he can explain how the Big Scary Monsters are not receiving a massive bailout, or how it is not expensive to taxpayers.

Understanding Starbucks

2008-04-17T09:12:00.001-07:00

Megan McArdle doesn't. Their target audience are people with the right combination of ignorance and insecurity to imagine that, because this unpleasantly charred stuff is different, it must be somehow better.

My House Is Too Big

2008-04-02T06:22:00.000-07:00

And too new: it's part of the unfortunate pattern of rising real wealth, which has increased the supply of goods like homes. [The word good here is itself a kind of hint...] Fortunately, Holman Jenkins offers a solution. Let them eat cake, and live in trailer parks: that's where they belong anyway.

[Via Steve Sailer.]

How To Safeguard Your Privacy

2008-04-02T05:32:00.000-07:00

I don't know if people have really recognized that the number of output values in this tacky test is not much smaller than the number of possible input combinations; and thus all their inputs, including but not limited to penis size, can be backed out with fair accuracy.

Aren't computers great?

Tyler Cowen underestimates hedgies...

2008-03-18T02:31:00.001-07:00

They can write naked calls too!

Wanted: Defenseless Dead

2008-02-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

Someone died waiting for that reckless driver's heart. Two died waiting for his kidneys.

You First -- No, I Insist

2008-02-18T09:36:00.001-08:00

Stanford research fellow Deborah Rogers complains about avoiding natural selection "in the short term".

We need to begin aligning our culture with the powerful forces of nature and natural selection instead of against them.

Because the operation of these forces is more important than such ephemera as technological progress, alleviation of misery, and life itself for a few billion irrelevant earthlings.

Marvinous

2008-02-07T01:01:00.001-08:00

Why has no one yet thought to dub Hillary Clinton "The Paranoid Android"?

You heard it here first!

Soft Sell

2008-02-05T05:26:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't you like to be this winsome? Now you know how!

Look out, Jersey chicks

2008-01-30T00:36:00.001-08:00

I've just learned, via Jonathan Chait, that's it's OK to sexually molest poor women: after all, they're just "trailer trash".

Short McCain

2007-11-14T00:39:00.001-08:00

Any price. Your size.

e e cummings writes a lyric

2007-11-07T01:42:00.000-08:00

saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday night's alright
saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday night's alright
saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday saturday night's alright
woo hee

Pick One

2007-09-21T09:03:00.001-07:00

You can call America's conflict with Islamic extremists a (or even "the") "long war". Or you can talk about the latitude which should be given a President or government during wartime. To attempt both at once shows only stupidity, and a presumption that others share your stupidity.

Pleas for Calm

2007-09-17T06:01:00.000-07:00

How can we stay calm at the behest of the same people who caused the panic in the first place?

Who Knew?

2007-09-13T02:30:00.000-07:00

Another great headline in the British papers: "Shock admission from Bank of England... WE CAN'T CONTROL MORTGAGE RATES!" Coming next, weather and teenagers are also tricky.

Explanations

2007-09-07T05:23:00.000-07:00

In his debate with Matt Feeney, Jonah Goldberg is apparently too squeamish to close the loophole in his argument: to point out the "child-rearing customs" of mutilation and domestic slavery for girls, and violence and drunken idleness for boys, are a large contributor to the merely economic failures Mr. Goldberg does note.

Brothers

2007-09-06T01:02:00.001-07:00

So it turns out I have two things in common with Paul Krugman: neither of us writes about what we understand, and neither of us is ever going to win a Nobel prize.

Alan Bennett Hates Women

2007-03-19T04:08:00.000-07:00

Is there any other explanation for the excruciatingly dull and stupid monologue with which he has saddled the lone female character in The History Boys? This page of platitudes sits in an otherwise well-paced piece of homosexual escapism like a varicose grandmother on a swim team.

Would it work?

2007-03-15T02:26:00.000-07:00

The poster for the Bruce Willis movie Hostage features what must be the stupidest tagline ever: "Would you sacrifice another family to save your own?"

HSBC

2007-03-07T06:27:00.000-08:00

Not only setting the fox to guard the henhouse, but paying him ten bucks a year for his efforts.

Giorgio Armani underwear

2007-03-07T06:20:00.000-08:00

Not very good for your love life, apparently. According to their poster ads, you will end up masturbating into a towel -- but really enjoying it!