Line of the Day: 2014-03-24

But he talks, a lot. It is a wind concerto played entirely on dog whistles ...
    -- Adam Weinstein, describing Michael Hill, in "Inside the
    American Id: Chilling With the South’s New Secessionists"

Hard times at the checkout line

Got a fairly gushing compliment from a customer today.

On the ... uniformity, I think she meant ... of my "salt and pepper hair."

Might have hurt a little less had she been, say, fifteen years younger than me.

Ah, no. Probably not that, either.

Let us all describe him thus, forevermore

Bill Donohue, the president and probably sole member of the Catholic League, ...

That was from Dok Zoom's Weekly Derp Roundup. Item seven. Although how anyone will make it that far after first finding our how outraged we need to be at Honey Maid graham crackers, I have no idea.

[Added] Follow-up on the horror, the horror, that the PaPSM narrowly avoided.

Line of the Day: 2014-03-11

Still, I guess this ["hunger=dignity speech"] is a further nail in the coffin of [Paul] Ryan’s reputation as Serious, Honest Conservative. But I am of course a shrill bad guy, because I was guilty of premature anti-Ryanism — you weren’t supposed to figure out that he was a con man until 2011 or 2012.
    -- Paul Krugman

(previously in shrill)

[Added] More debunking of Ryan's speech from Jon Stewart, et al.

Line of the Day: 2014-03-04

If we are going to decide big issues, like eating genetically modified food, fracking for natural gas, responding to the prospect of drastic climate change, exploring space or engaging in ambitious science research, we are going to have to start from some common experience.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the longtime senator from New York, once said, everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. So where are we going to get them?

In science, as in other areas of our culture, there is no dearth of voices, but are we paying attention? In the new New Age, it’s all about which cable channels you watch or whom you follow on Twitter.

We could use a national conversation that is not about scandal or sports. If everybody watches the new “Cosmos,” we can talk about it the way we once argued about “The Sopranos” every Monday morning.

And perhaps that will happen. The early reviews of the series are glowing, and an adoring profile of Dr. Tyson recently appeared in The New Yorker. And we are not talking about tweedy PBS here; the show will be on Fox, home of “24” and “American Idol.”

It’s hard to imagine a better man to reboot the cosmos than Neil deGrasse Tyson.
    -- Dennis Overbye

Things that make your shoulder creak

A caption from an (otherwise) enjoyable report from someplace in spring training:

The Rockies’ LaTroy Hawkins, left, is the longest-tenured player, debuting in April 1995.

Come on. That's like, what, nine years ago?

</senior moment>

Not even making this up

Or, typo of the day.

Jason Collins' jersey skyrockets to No. 1 on sales list

Happy headline! But then, an opening sentence. A lede, if you will.

Jason Collins' signing with the Brooklyn Nets as the fist openly gay professional athlete has been described as ...

ARRRRRR, CBS Sports.

(h/t: Lisa Needham)