February 2008
69 posts
Wired: Julius Caesar Takes the Leap
45 B.C.: Roman dictator-for-life Julius Caesar, alarmed that the calendar is growing out of whack with the seasons, adds an extra day to the month of February every four years.
Caesar was reforming a calendar based on 364 days, with an occasional extra leap month. But the Roman religious officials in charge of minding the calendar had been asleep at the switch, chronologically speaking....
“I feel like a mosquito at a nudist colony. I know what to do, I just...”
– Pat Riley
“Jesus, he’s killing her! I mean, she’s smiling but in the way a...”
– Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
Did you see this?
noraleah:
I think I learned about Jews when I was about 11. (I was raised an atheist; all I really knew was that going to church was lame but necessary on rare occasions.) From then until age 17 or so I was kind of obsessed with Jewish boys. Give me a ‘fro and a -stein and I was in heaven.
(PS: No, I can date the Jew-love to much earlier. My dad’s business partner was a Zionist. He had a son...
On Green Tea
My friend Jamie just gave me a huge package of some of the best green tea China has to offer (his dad was probably the first person to import tea from China to the US, so he knows). I’ve been drinking a few cups a day since. Also, I mentioned to Nick a couple weeks ago that even with all that fried food - fried rice, fried chicken, stir fry, etc. - the Chinese eat, they still live forever...
“I’d rather be hungover at work than hungover on a Saturday morning.”
– Pete Sulick
“I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama’s name. It is a name to...”
– Juan Cole, in response to Bill Cunningham’s introduction of John McCain yesterday, which McCain condemned.
“If I cannot play in the Olympics for my country this time, that will be the...”
– Yao Ming. About as heartbreaking as you could get in the world of sports and national pride.
Lion Hugs His Rescuer →
lovepuppy: sneakyjane: candywrapper: The woman in the video found this lion wounded and about to die in the jungle. She took him home and cared for him until he was better, then arranged for him to stay at a zoo nearby. This video was filmed when the woman went back to see the lion some time after. The lion’s reaction is INCREDIBLE. (link thanks to doree) Oh my gosh! I love it! I love when...
“I don’t care what anyone says, you are not too old for training wheels.”
– Nick Gray, to a hipster who can’t ride a bike.
Who are these people? (Seinfeld voice)
There's a problem checking out at Kmart.
Me: Do you need to see the credit card again?
Cashier: [looks at screen] Yes. [Another problem] Do you know your zip code?
Me: 10003. Does anyone answer 'no' to that question?
Cashier: [Smiles] Lots of people.
WatchHillary’s Inner Tracy Flick Brilliant. via Frank Rich’s latest. Rich’s best quote of the week:Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin résumé, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker résumé is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid.
“Honesty is not having to remember what you’ve said.”
– Mark Twain (via oats) I love Mark Twain. My favorite is “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.”
EarnDegreeInPJs.com →
Girl in tank-top, boxers and slippers: “I’m not going to bed right now, I’m going to college. Thousands of people go to college in their pajamas everyday.” - beginning of TV commercial I just saw
The core of the administration I'd love to see
POTUS: Barack Obama
VP: Wesley Clark or Jim Webb (both strong on defense)
Sec of State: Bill Bradley (I love Bill Richardson and Joe Biden but think Bradley would be better)
Attorney General: John Edwards (he would kick ass and be ready to run for president again)
SecDef: Jack Reed, Wes Clark or Jim Webb (David Petraeus?)
Treasury: Jon Corzine? I'm not sure here. Is this too small for Bloomberg?
Other Cabinet Posts: Kathleen Sebelius (HHS?), Ed Rendell?, Dick Lugar (Agriculture; yes, he's GOP), and Schwarzenegger (also GOP and Obama said he's consider him). Richardson probably wouldn't accept less than VP or State.
“The moment you lose your big idea is the moment that your day turns to twilight.”
– David Wilhelm
WatchHow to See the World in Words: The Child
“Theodore Roosevelt was always a sickly child afflicted with asthma. As a teenager, he decided that he would ‘make his body,’ and he undertook a program of gymnastics and weight-lifting, which helped him develop a rugged physique. Thereafter, Roosevelt became a lifelong advocate of exercise and the ‘strenuous life.’ He always found time for physical exertions...
Statistical proof that Derek Jeter was the worst... →
Bernie Williams was the worst center fielder. I feel vindicated.
“Why don’t you sit down, have a glass of wine with us, and I’ll...”
– Francesco Quinn as Ruben Vega in The Tonto Woman, nominated for an Oscar for best live action short, after being told he has one minute to mount up and ride out of town.
WatchMichael Pollan challenges the idea that in order for man to win, nature has to lose something. It is not a zero sum game. It’s from last year’s TED conference, but they just posted the video.
A South Korean company says it has taken its first... →
RNL Bio is charging the woman, from California, $150,000 to clone the pitbull using tissue extracted from its ear before it died.
Stuff White People Like →
Including standing still at concerts, Japan, irony, arts degrees, 80s night, awareness and tea.
Karl Rove and a student at Choate, paraphrased
Marla Spivak: How would giving gay people the right to marry endanger other people?
Karl Rove: That's something that should be decided by the legislature or a referendum, not a court.
Marla Spivak: But wouldn't creating a separate body of legislation for gay people be creating a separate but equal system, a step back?
Karl Rove: Mormons changed their views on marriage to conform with the law.
Marla Spivak: You never actually answered, how does it threaten anyone?
Karl Rove: What's the compelling reason to throw out 5,000 years of understanding the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman?
Marla Spivak: What was the compelling reason for society to allow interracial relationships when they had once been outlawed?
Karl Rove: blah blah Declaration of Independence blah
Marla Spivak: Doesn't "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" mean anything?
Karl Rove: Should we then allow polygamy? ... When do you plan to run for political office?
via the Hartford Courant
“Mr. Clemens testified that in those conversations with Mr. Pettitte, he was...”
– Am I reading this right? Is he throwing his wife under the bus? …. Well, we know who’s going to be getting major *D*I*A*M*O*N*D*S* tomorrow. (From NYTimes.) (via noraleah) No, they knew she had used HGH already. Clemens’ trainer, Brian McNamee, did it and told them. Clemens said he found...
Roger Clemens is getting ripped apart right now in his Congressional testimony. I think he’s going to jail for perjury after this.
“In 2007 China contributed more to global growth than the United States, the...”
– The Rise of a Fierce Yet Fragile Superpower by Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek
Pipes Mashup Turns Google Maps into a Blogging... →
Geoblogging instead of chronoblogging. Zach, you should think about using this in April.
“Science and technology have driven 50% of our growth in GDP over the last 50...”
– Shawn Otto, the CEO of Science Debate, Inc., which was set up to make Science Debate 2008 happen
When did the former First Lady go from Hillary Rodham Clinton to Hillary Clinton?