Quick Hitts

Note to non-US readers:  Knowing a few facts about the state of Mississippi will make the following story more understandable.
The sole purpose of Mississippi is to keep Alabama off the bottom of every quality of life list.  Whenever you see a chart of US states comparing unwed births, high school dropouts or average number of [...]

The New York Legislature is considering a bill that would make it a criminal offense for restaurant chefs to add salt to food. Yes, you read that right.  Once again, the absurdity of real life makes satire obsolete.
This is exactly what happens when you let the nanny camel get its nose in the tent.
It started, [...]

Marketing failures can teach you as much, if not more, as marketing successes.
I just received an e-mail from a company I’ve done business with.  The headline was “Free Ground Shipping from <Company Name>.  I opened it and saw a very attractive ad, which I clicked.
Instead of  taking me to http://companyname.com/ it loaded http://marketing.companyname.com/ and requested [...]

Check out the latest Quick Hitts Podcast: Figuring Our The Tea Party. Are they a great thing that will save us from creeping socialism, or a mass of misfits and whack-a-loons?

I’ve watched a few CPAC speeches, and they reminded me of townhall.com: It was a combination of brilliant thinkers and mouth-breathing wing-nuts.
It was encouraging to see they invited a gay rights group, and even more encouraging when a wing-nut who condemned them for it was booed off the stage. But it would be better [...]

As promised, here’s the second half of the TADD list from 2009.  This are culled from the second half of last years leftover bookmarks.  They document all kinds of things things done by believers, from the horrific to the hilarious.
A group of 35 clerics in Saudi Arabia has declared that no woman should ever appear [...]

Last year the nicotine nannies (NNs) took their Second Hand Smoke nonsense a step further and announced that third hand smoke (THS?) was deadly.   The evidence consisted of someone doing a survey, asking people if they believed this nonsense, then presenting that as scientific proof.   “Journalists” ran with the story, declaring that smokers who had [...]

Throughout his campaign LMO promised he wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $250k/year.  The *first* thing he did in office was raise the tax on roll your own tobacco by an astounding 2,159%.  It’s a pretty safe bet RYO smokers are making a *bit* less than a quarter million bucks a year. (BTW, [...]

Those of us who are fond of reality make the mistake of using logic and reason to deal with religious nutters in an attempt to show them their conclusions are flawed.  (We use the term “flawed” because it’s impolite to use the more accurate term: “fucking stupid.”)  We can be persuaded by logic and reason, [...]

Hat Tip: Hayden Black of the very funny Goodnight Burbank.

This has been a very bad week for the left.  They’ve received bitch slaps from three different directions, but only one of them will have any lasting impact.
The Democrats lost Ted Kennedy’s senate seat in one of the nation’s most liberal states, a state that already has its own version of Obamacare. (Which has been [...]

Back in 1978 F. Paul Wilson wrote Lippidleggin’, a short story about a farmer bootlegging butter and eggs, which had been banned to improve everyone’s health.  I’m guessing that back then most people thought it was entertaining, but silly.
Back in 2007, with the author’s permission, I did a reading of the story for an episode [...]

Jehovah’s Witnesses are actively discouraged (virtually forbidden) from contributing to relief organizations in response to disasters.  On Friday afternoon someone on the Jehovah’s Witnesses Recovery Forum suggested setting up a site to encourage ex-JWs to donate to Haitian relief funds.  Friday night several of us had a conference call to plan out the details.  Now, [...]

Few things can make life as miserable as idiot neighbors.  Imagine someone next door demanding you give up your cell phone and wi-fi because he’s allergic to electromagnetic radiation.
If you life in Santa Fe, you don’t have to imagine it.  Arthur Firstenberg is demanding his neighbors turn off everything to cater to his imaginary allergy [...]

I’ve got a lot of 2009 links left over for the ever-popular Things Atheists Didn’t Do series.  Here’s the first half of the list.    (You can find other TADD here.)
This one is actually from 2008.  (I have so many of these things saved sometimes they  get lost.)  Three Christian parents murdered their children by relying [...]

The latest terrorist attempt to bring down a plane proves, beyond any doubt, that the TSA’s security theater is useless.  This guy was already on their watch list but that didn’t even slow him down.  (The watch list has, however, caused a lot of perfectly innocent people, including infants, from getting on a plane, because [...]

Just in time for Christmas, the British Medical Journal is featuring an article blaming Santa for obesity, speeding, drunk driving, extreme sports, smoking and reckless behavior.
Dr Nathan “Grinch” Grills wants to rework Santa into a politically correct image, right down to wearing a helmet and seat belt.
Using a variation of the nannies second favorite chant [...]

The Copenhagen summit on global cooling global warming climate change is barely started, and already impoverished nations are demanding handouts. Environment Minister Hasan Mahmud of Bangladesh says his country is entitled to a cubic buttload of money from the big nasty countries who arrogantly built successful societies while his government kept their citizens living [...]

Bobby McFarrin demonstrates that the pentatonic scale is a universal constant.

The newest Quick Hitts Podcast, “Ask Dave,” is now available for your listening pleasure.  It explains how people can believe the earth is 6,000 years old, why parents should buy red washcloths, and things to consider before naming your baby “Thor.”